Angry in the Great White North

In this announcement to half-quit his day job, Stephane Dion wants to spend the next six months fundraising:

The embattled leader of the opposition announced Monday he will relinquish his party’s reins, but not until after the next leader is chosen. That will happen at the party’s policy convention in Vancouver in May.

Instead, Dion vowed to steer his party for the next few months, helping to launch a rejuvenated fund-raising effort so whoever replaces him will not be subjected to the same attacks from the Conservatives that Dion says felled him.

Assuming that the convention is not moved up, that means six months of Stephane Dion raising cash.  Consider his track record.

In the first six months of 2008, the Liberals under Stephane Dion raised $1.7 million in donations.

In the same six months, the Conservatives raised $8.5 million -- five times as much.

If anything, the next six months are going to much harder for Stephane Dion.

A leadership race will be on, meaning each candidate will be going after every Liberal they can find for donations to fund their ongoing campaigns.  The contenders from the last leadership race will be be going after every Liberal they can find for donations to pay off their campaign debts.

The Liberal Party took in over eight hundred thousand fewer votes.  That is going to be reflected in the donation numbers as well.

Stephane Dion himself is damaged goods.  Portrayed by those attack ads as indecisive, Stephane Dion couldn't even quit decisively, pathetically holding on to shreds of hope even as any Liberal who could find a reporter would become a "well-placed insider" and called for him to go:

Stéphane Dion wanted so badly to hear from friends that he should stay on as Liberal leader.

In a Sunday night telephone call, just hours before he was to face the national media, Mr. Dion told one friend that Liberals and others advised he could fight another election.

He was sad. It was an emotional call and he was clinging to the fact that there were those, such as neighbours, who were telling him to stay put.

“I think he would hold on to anything,” says the friend, who cautioned him to examine how much support he had.

He said he had “some.”

Of course he had some support from those people who told him he ran a good campaign:

Dion denied that his own performance in the campaign was a factor in the party's dismal showing.

"I consulted a lot about my own performance and I have been told that it has been a very good one, that I have been a good campaigner. I spoke with conviction. We had a good platform," he said.

Indecisive and delusional to the end, Stephane Dion is now consumed with defining his legacy.  He plans to use the Liberal Party for the next six months as a vehicle of political rehabilitation.  He will raise funds and be a star in the House of Commons.

You know, all the things he didn't do as actual leader.

He wants to make sure the Liberal Party is grateful to him for the fine start the next leader will enjoy.

I think the members of Liberal caucus have to think long and hard about what Stephane Dion's motivations are.  I think they have to think long and hard about whether the Liberal Party will be in a better position or worse after six more months of this Stephane Dion at the helm.

The members of the Liberal caucus have to think long and hard about whether the party can afford to fall another six million dollars behind, just in time for a new Liberal leader to take charge.  Because honestly, does anyone in the Liberal caucus think fundraising will suddenly get better under Stephane Dion?

And one last thing.  There will be a budget in February.  That means at least one confidence vote.  There might well be others.

The members of the Liberal caucus have to think long and hard about what Stephane Dion will do assuming a new leader is not in place by then.  Dion was humiliated 43 times during the last parliament, abstaining from vote after vote to avoid an election.  That election finally happened, thanks to Stephen Harper's decisiveness and despite Stephane Dion's pleas for more time.  In that election, Stephane Dion was crushed.

Will he go 44 times?  Or will he lose it completely and attempt to trigger an election?

Oh, the caucus will stop him if Dion was to try.  But they can stop him in February, in front of the press, with the chaos feeding the next iteration of Conservative attack ads while further scaring away potential donors, or they can stop him now, before it goes that far.

Stephane Dion thinks he is entitled to the position of interim leader.  Members of the Liberal caucus have to consider just what exactly they owe to Stephane Dion.