No matter who we Liberals replace Stephane Dion with, the first task at hand should be establishing a strong, positive image of him for the Canadian public.
I don't just mean some neat shots of him, his family and Liberal forefathers caught in a confetti-strewn hug; we need to have the leader's images and words in a variety areas of life (personal, historical, global) displayed and framed before the CONs do it for us.
Either Michael Ignatieff or Bob Rae will be an outstanding choice, but both will have their achilles. And Harper's gang of thugs will be swinging for them, as noted in this well-written piece by Charlie Smith of the Georgia Straight.
On the plus side, Harper's own credibility is suffering at this time, even from some of his more friendly servants in the media; he has never been shy about being a divisive leader, however, in the past he has resisted taking his eye off 'the ball' which in this case is going for the Liberal jugular. With serious questions on his leadership creeping out, one would expect that he would shift his focus.
Another plus is that we've seen this show before. Canadians have been exposed to the CON strategy and they needed 20 some months to make it stick last time. I am willing to bet that people will be more cynical to any CON ad campaign that insists on flinging monkey feces while the government has a huge economic crisis it should be expending its energies on.
Another positive point? Stephen Harper's actions over the past few weeks may have done more for uniting the left-centre and centre than Brian Mulroney ever did.
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And we HAVE to fight back. There is no "high road". The trick is to talk, talk, TALK about taking the high road ALL the time, but fighting like a street fighter in the trenches.
Jean Chretien knew what to do, and how to do it. The gloves come off. Warren Kinsella comes in. No wimps in the war room. All out war.
Oh yeah... One more thing. We need to raise a LOT of money in the next few weeks - for the ads...
So true. We won't have the benefit of a 'traditional leadership race' now that the party is going to install an interim leader. But the opportunity to unite people who are disgusted and fed up with Stephen Harper is there; we need to mobilize it in our favour. I do think Ignatieff's ability to rise above the din, and perhaps his 'cagey' placement during the coalition situation, may also help. It's about uniting people, however, so if he chooses to run for the interim position (which I believe he's all but signalled he would) he does have some work to do, just judging by some of the bloggers on Liblogs. And that's what is to be expected. I hope we can get you onboard, too.
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