The Liberal Party of Canada isn’t supposed to pick its permanent successor Michael Ignatieff until the middle of 2013. But interim leader Bob Rae gave such a fiery speech to his caucus today that many think — despite a rule set by the party leadership to prevent him from running for the permanent job — he may yet end up with that job. Liberals have a conference this weekend in Ottawa where a new executive will be name and where there could be some leadership race rule changes.
Good enough, excuse, then to sound out your views about who should lead the Liberals. I’ve picked some likely suspects below from the current Liberal caucus in the House of Commons and added in Ontario’s Liberal Preimer Dalton McGuinty just for fun. Feel free to write in your own candidate.
UPDATE: Based on your write-in feedback, I’ve added Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, former leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy, and PEI Premier Robert Ghiz.
UPDATE 2: Am reminded by correspondent that Justin Trudeau has ruled out a bid. So have removed Justin (though you can still write him in). Also: That’s why Scott Brison is not presented as option. He, too, has ruled it out. Also added Mark Carney, Bank of Canada Governor, in response to requests. So far, the biggest write-in ballot is National Post columnist Andrew Coyne.
[polldaddy poll=5832905]
Ted Hsu!
We want to know who the “Others” are. We’ve heard rumours of Andrew Coyne. 😉
http://www.facebook.com/DraftCoyne4LPC
Amanda Lang!
Martha Hall Findlay
I was drawn over who could cause the most permanent damage, so many names. Bob with all his socialist baggage, Justin with his inexperience,Garneau with his insular attitude. I finally had to go with the most radical, Bennett.
ABR
Anybody but Rae. I don’t care how you sell it his history in Ontario will kill the Ontario liberal vote. If he defends his past you have to ask, ” If you were such a great NDP gov , why did you become liberal?”
His entire defense of his gov is his NDP gov was better than the following Conservative Gov. How does that equate to a Liberal gov would be a good thing. Its and insane argument.
Ryan Bater, leader of the SK Libs. This is the guy that Andrew Coyne endorsed as “my kind of liberal.” Young, brilliant, photogenic, and a true liberal, believing in small government and maximum personal freedoms.
Of course if the feds do what the provincials just did and sit on their ass expecting the leader to do everything, the feds are screwed. Liberals have had it too good for too long and are afraid of hard work or hard thinking. The NDP might be afraid of hard thinking, but decades in third gave them a great work ethic. If the Libs could tap in to that kind of volunteer power, come up with a philosophically consistent platform, and had a solid liberal leader like Bater or Coyne, they’d have a shot. Just need money.
However, the way things look right now, they are just going to keep navel-gazing and coming up with policies that are either dull, unrealistic, or not liberal (liberalism is not socialism!).
Then again, maybe they need a name change or we liberals need a new party to vote for. The leader is going to be a pretty small factor at the end of the day, especially if constitutional changes further limit her/his role.
Naheed Nenshi – If he decides to run for Fedral Politics he will go under CPC not a Liberal at all!
Andrew Coyne – will never run under LPC or any other for that matter, he believes in a streng Federal Government, no left or right aaand the purity of Parliament, that’s the only reason he supported LPC last election, hates what he thinks is abuse by the Harper Government.
I’d love to see Dominic Leblanc or Gerard Kennedy, Rae is bad news any way you see it!
Frank McKenna… we need someone from the east who can take the country by storm like he took New Brunswick. He is honest, true to his word, and someone who can take on the conservatives
Frank McKenna is the obvious best choice, if the Liberals can convince him to run. If not him, the Libs should be trying their best to get Nenshi, but not until hes finished being the great mayor he is for Calgary.
Frank McKenna could easily become Prime Minister of Canada. As a Conservative, he would scare me the most. Or maybe I would vote for him and go back to being a Liberal again.