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Wednesday, October 29, 2008

"we’ve lost touch with just what the heck we’re all about in the first place."

I almost completely missed this post until someone of a more articulate nature pointed me in its direction (ht IP). With all the talk of renewal and reform of the somewhat directionless Liberal Party of Canada, Jeff Jedras hit the nail on the head in a recent post:

The question we, as Liberals, should be asking ourselves is not do we need to be centre or left, but what do we stand for? What does being a Liberal mean? What are Liberal values?

We’ve become, or rather, had become, so good at the strategic game, at morphing to suit political changing winds, that we’ve lost touch with just what the heck we’re all about in the first place.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent post, Jeff. Thanks for linking, Dave.

Anonymous said...

I tend to agree.

The task before their new leader is a pretty daunting one; reform and rebuild the Liberal Party from the bottom up, bringing it into this century; renewing its values and making it relevant to Canadians, again, and; striking interest in the young people and apathetic, busting the regional divisions that seem to define our politics, and bringing them together to inspire them to want to do right by the legacy that Canadians seem so proud of.... not re-fight the same election battles and trivialities over and over, again.

This is no small task, and I fear that none of the usual suspects vying for the mantle of Liberal leader - Ignatieff, Rae, Kennedy or any of the others - could do it, and represent more of the same.

Each of them have spent years marinating in the ugly political culture of Parliament, and are confined to that box of mediocrity it seems to foster -- the same one that tends to make Canadians tune out to the political process altogether.

/rant

Idealistic Pragmatist said...

And yet STILL no one has commented on it. WTF???

Anonymous said...

"And yet STILL no one has commented on it. WTF???"

I think that's an indicator that, either;

A) Nobody can answer, quote, "[the] question we, as Liberals, should be asking ourselves is not do we need to be centre or left, but what do we stand for? What does being a Liberal mean? What are Liberal values?", or;

B) Nobody's reading it aside from us chickens.

I'm not sure which would be worse.