Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Dear progressives: What will you do if the Liberals move to the right?


In an earlier comments section, "the rev." wrote thusly:

The Liberals are unlikely to swerve left in choosing a new leader. I think they will pick a red tory and shift a little further right.

If this does indeed happen, I'm curious as to how progressives will react.

From my readings, it seemed that a lot of progressives weren't overly thrilled with either the Liberals or Paul Martin in this election but they realized that the Conservatives were a far greater evil so those progressives held their noses and voted Liberal.

But what if the Libs move even further to the right? What then? At what point does a genuine progressive scream "Enough!" and walk away from them? How far is too far? So, in the spirit of the challenge I laid for conservatives a while back as to when they would admit that Stephen Harper lied, I have a challenge aimed specifically at Canada's progressives.

Put together a list of likely candidates to succeed Martin, and let me know which of those candidates, if they became the new party leader, would cause you to abandon the Liberals. Obviously, there are going to be candidates you'd support, and ones you're not sure about. But I want to know which ones would be just downright unacceptable to you.

Or would the choice of a new leader simply not make a difference?

GRIST FOR THE MILL
: Canadian WIld Blog has a list of possible successors, including, of all people, Belinda Stronach. Belinda Stronach!?!? Refresh my memory but wasn't she running for the leadership of the CPC not that long ago? Doesn't that kind of disqualify her from this position until she at least bolsters her street creds or something? Sheesh.

1 comment:

Simon said...

It already happened for me.

I'm a "progressive", and I screamed "Enough!" and walked away from the Liberals in the last election (maybe even the one before that, I can't remember). I voted Green last time, and NDP this time (expecting a close battle between Svend Robinson and Hedy Fry).

I take a fresh look at things during each election, so if the Liberals ever move left I'll be mildly intrigued. If they move right? I'll continue to ignore them.