{"id":2090,"date":"2008-12-10T00:03:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-10T05:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2090"},"modified":"2008-12-10T00:03:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-10T05:03:00","slug":"mi-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2090","title":{"rendered":"MI Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
Well, that was certainly less than ideal – especially when you look at the beautiful exercise in democracy the Democratic primaries turned into earlier this year. Sure, the Obama-Clinton duel featured controversy, vicious attacks, and hurt feelings, but it also featured real debate, a clash of ideas, and a thorough vetting of the candidates. More importantly, those primaries brought thousands of people into the fold, rejuvenating the party in the process. The candidates showcased themselves, the membership voted<\/em> based on what they saw, and the party emerged stronger because of it.<\/p>\n

I suspect that even Ignatieff<\/span> supporters are feeling somewhat unsatisfied at this resolution. But I don’t want to be a downer here – it could have been a lot worse. Rae could have easily gone negative against Ignatieff<\/span> and the establishment, turning the next month into a bloody internal battle of the likes unseen since…well, pick one of a thousand bloody internal Liberal battles. Instead, Rae put his party ahead of his own self-interest and the man deserves all the praise in the world for that. Ever since Bob took out an LPC<\/span> membership, there have been doubts about his motivations and his commitment<\/span> to the party – no one can doubt him now. I’m not a Rae supporter by any means but after listening to his very gracious words of support for Ignatieff<\/span>, I took out my credit card and made a $50 donation to help erase his leadership debt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So what now? Well, the philosopher king, Michael Ignatieff<\/span>, inherits the mantle of Liberal leadership. I’ve always felt that Ignatieff<\/span> had the potential for greatness. The man is brilliant, is a commanding speaker, and has inspired many. I believe he has grown exponentially as a politician since entering the political arena just three years ago, and he has surrounded himself with some of the brightest minds in the Liberal Party. He would make a great Prime Minister.<\/p>\n

But I said “would” rather than “will” for a reason. Liberals need to recognize that the days of the Liberal leadership being a direct path to 24 Sussex are gone. Despite Dion’s failings<\/span>, the problems with this party run deeper than leadership and there’s a lot of work to be done. I’ve written about what I think should be done<\/a>, and after an aborted leadership race that has left many feeling alienated<\/a>, it will be even more challenging to improve party fundraising, engage the membership, and figure out what this party stands for. While preparing for the next election is important, I hope that Ignatieff<\/span> makes the long term health of the party an immediate priority of his.<\/p>\n

So congratulations once again to Michael Ignatieff<\/span>. The Liberal Party faces many challenges and I will do whatever I can to help him meet them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, that was certainly less than ideal – especially when you look at the beautiful exercise in democracy the Democratic primaries turned into earlier this year. Sure, the Obama-Clinton duel featured controversy, vicious attacks, and hurt feelings, but it also featured real debate, a clash of ideas, and a thorough vetting of the candidates. More […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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=2090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}