Angry in the Great White North

Jason Cherniak is getting some ink for trying to help his boss, Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion:

A high-profile Dion leadership campaign worker and blogger, fed up with what he calls "incorrect," but powerful media reports, says he may force the leadership issue and move a motion to support leader Stephane Dion at next month's first-ever council of presidents meeting of the 308 riding association presidents in Montreal.

Jason Cherniak, riding association president for Richmond Hill, Ont., said although there isn't supposed to be any vote on Mr. Dion's (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, Que.) leadership at the meeting, he's considering putting forward the strategic motion of support.

"I personally think we should pass a motion saying that we support his leadership and I might even be proposing it, but this is something that's in the early stages and I haven't organized anything," Mr. Cherniak said in an interview. He runs his own popular blog and served as blog campaign chair for Mr. Dion's leadership campaign in the last Liberal leadership campaign.

Now Jason Cherniak is a lawyer, so we can only assume that as a lawyer he is following the rule that a lawyer never poses a question to which he doesn't already know the answer.

So will such a motion pass? Of course it will, and it will be a resounding vote of confidence in Stephane Dion.

Or else Jason Cherniak would never be crazy enough to propose the motion.

I suppose the fact that one riding president recently resigned in protest over Stephane Dion's ineffectual leadership should not be taken as evidence that many more presidents would be willing to take the less drastic step of voting against Jason Cherniak's motion, or abstaining from it (which would be so funny -- more Liberals abstaining).

Plus Jason Cherniak is wise enough not to set the bar a successful vote. I suppose fifty-percent+plus+one would count, but really, it ought to be much higher. Hopefully the tally supporting Stephane Dion would end up much higher.

Well, we'll never know. The party president says Jason Cherniak's idea is dead-on-arrival:

But the party president said there will be no vote or review of Mr. Dion's leadership.

"I have not heard that, number one. Number two, it is not in the roles and responsibilities or the powers of this committee," said Liberal Party President and Ontario Senator Marie Poulin, who, as the party president, is also the chair of the council of presidents.

Too bad. I would like to have seen the results of that vote.

Seriously though, what is the point of the vote?

• Everyone votes for Stephane Dion. Yawn.
• A few presidents vote against Stephane Dion. Who? Which ridings?
• A third or more of the presidents vote against Stephane Dion. Disaster!
• More than half of the presidents vote against Stephane Dion. Crisis!

No upside and a lot of downsides.

Does this make this yet one more vote Stephane Dion would want to avoid? How embarrassing is that?