As H1N1 sweeps across the nation, Liberal poll numbers sputter and Prime Minister Harper sashays in Bollywood while the federal Liberal brain trust is slumped on Donolo’s bench gulping much needed oxygen between periods.

The Conservative’s India inroads must be particularly galling given the long tradition of Indo-Canadians voting en masse for Liberals – particularly when it came to needing quick votes at candidate nomination meetings.

The Liberals must be working overtime to come up with a platform that rings true with voters. Meanwhile Mr. Harper systematically and strategically chips away at their storied franchise.

But Harper has chinks in his armour. Not the least of which is the ire that he inspires in long-time, loyal Liberals. Even my close Liberal friends still summarize their entire re-election strategy as “I hate Harper.” You can mobilize loyalists on hate. But the majority of Canadian voters are another story altogether.

I suspect that the big decision facing Iggy and his troops is whether they are going to bite the bullet and run centre left instead of right of centre – the position so well staked out by Jean Chretien. Their success in this traditional Conservative slot to the right was based on the party’s realization that when it comes to money and taxes, Canadians are really quite (c)onservative.

For strategic rebuilding answers, the party needs to turn to none other than Stephane Dion – who despite his humiliation at the hands of the Canadian media and the Conservative headhunters – had the right idea for the future of the party quite possibly based on his long tenure with the redbirds and his notable affection for the grass roots workers of the party.

Harper is clearly very vulnerable on the environment. Remember Dion’s Green Shift? No matter what you call it, Canadians are paying attention to our ragged global performance in this category. Saving the environment is something virtually everyone today can vote for. Including some Albertans, British Columbians and most importantly – Quebecers.

How about uniting the leftovers in a new improved environmentally enlightened party (not a coalition) that excludes the fast-fading Bloc? I made a similar recommendation in a previous post when the NDP actually had bargaining power to make Jack Layton Deputy PM in a new Liberal Democratic Party. Now the NDP have none and are very ripe for a hostile takeover in the voting booth. So why not simply join the Liberals now? Elizabeth May could also be an asset but not as Green Party leader. She can’t win where she is currently Gulf Island vacationing. Bring her and her one million Green followers into the fold by making her the Liberal candidate in BC’s winnable Slocan Valley. It will legitimize a green positioning for the red side. As a bonus, she’s the only one who really challenged Harper in the last leadership debate.

Next solidify the urban vote. The future growth of the country is in our cities and a serious commitment to urban infrastructure improvements could seal the deal. Leave Harper to the long gun-toting country folk. Some high profile ex-municipal leaders in Toronto and elsewhere could help defend a few key seats there.

And perhaps most important, let’s not forget to re-ignite the Liberal way of encouraging independent, intelligent, bottom up thinking versus Conservative follow the leader top down marching orders. Give Gerard, Martha, Ken and others a voice. You can even call them “The Pros” against the “Cons.” Show them “Rat Pack” re-runs to fire them up.

Last but not least, let Iggy wax on philosophically about his big picture global ideas on whatever subject he wants for the intellectually gifted book readers (and their cheque books). It will confuse the hell out of the average, hockey-mom, Tim Horton’s slurping voters, but who cares? They are long gone Conservative anyway.

Will the Liberals win with this strategy? Not a chance. But they will at least distinguish themselves from the Conservatives, stem their profuse bleeding and live to fight another day in another minority government – until a real Liberal Prime Ministerial contender emerges. Hopefully she’s about thirty-eight years old with both breasts and balls. Not to mention bilingual brains.

Either that or run mano-a-mano on centre right policy to a most certainly painful death by majority of Harper and Company.

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Tags: h1n1, liberal party of canada

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Federal Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.