{"id":2024,"date":"2008-11-12T18:58:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-12T23:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2024"},"modified":"2008-11-12T18:58:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-12T23:58:00","slug":"the-field-narrows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2024","title":{"rendered":"The Field Narrows"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the initial field of a few<\/em> hundred thousand<\/em> rumoured candidates, it\u2019s looking more and more like this will be a three-man race (c\u2019mon<\/span> Paul Hellyer<\/span><\/a> \u2013 it\u2019s not too late to get a team together!). The latest MPs<\/span> to offer up the \u201cthanks, but no thanks<\/em>\u201d are Martha Hall Findlay<\/a>, Denis Coderre<\/span><\/a>, David McGuinty<\/a>, and Gerard Kennedy<\/a>. Given the amount of virtual ink I spilled pushing Kennedy\u2019s candidacy in 2006, I feel I should offer up a comment or two on his decision.<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s not what first drew me to him<\/a>, I think Gerard is one of the people in the Liberal Party who really \u201cgets it\u201d. He made \u201cimmigrant success<\/a>\u201d a key plank of his last leadership campaign, long before people realized that Jason Kenney<\/span> was systematically winning over support from this traditional Liberal demographic. He was the only Liberal candidate last time who talked about party renewal<\/a> and offered ideas to re-engage the base. Having been involved with Liberal politics in Alberta, he\u2019s also one of the few MPs<\/span> in the party who understands we can\u2019t keep writing off the West\u2026having talked with him about this<\/a> a few times, I think he gets this better than a lot of western Liberals.<\/p>\n

And while I know some will disagree with me, I think Gerard was bang on with his handling of the Afghanistan<\/a> and Quebec nation<\/a> grenades that were launched into the campaign last time.<\/p>\n

I know he has his detractors inside the party and is far from a perfect politician but, despite that, he was one of only four to win new Liberal seats last election, and he didn<\/span>\u2019t even need a Danny Williams assist to do it.<\/p>\n

Now, with all that said, I think Gerard was smart to take a pass (\u201cknow when to hold \u2018em, know when to fold \u2018em\u201d yada<\/span> yada<\/span> yada<\/span><\/em>). He\u2019s a good candidate now and I would have supported him again if he ran, but he\u2019ll be a better candidate in the future with some federal experience and a few more French lessons under his belt. I also think he can do a lot of good on the party renewal front from outside the race and I hope he directs his energy in that direction.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the initial field of a few hundred thousand rumoured candidates, it\u2019s looking more and more like this will be a three-man race (c\u2019mon Paul Hellyer \u2013 it\u2019s not too late to get a team together!). The latest MPs to offer up the \u201cthanks, but no thanks\u201d are Martha Hall Findlay, Denis Coderre, David McGuinty, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}