Angry in the Great White North

The main leadership contenders for the Liberal Party leadership are Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae.  There's Dominic LeBlanc too, but now he doesn't count.  Thanks to Stephane Dion's bumbling, the Liberals are looking to accelerate the ejection of Dion and put in a new leader, perhaps within a handful of weeks.

That means Dominic LeBlanc is a non-issue, not even as a king maker.  Other potential contenders are now off the board.  It all comes down to Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae.

Michael Ignatieff wants the Liberal Party to extricate itself from this coalition, and move the Liberal Party to the centre-right of the spectrum.

Bob Rae wants to solidify this coalition, perhaps as part of a plan to challenge the NDP for control of the left of Canada's political spectrum.

In a sense, nothing has changed.  Ignatieff and Rae always represented these two views of the party.  That is, move to the right or to the left.  Between now and May, the Liberal Party would have debated and considered these options, and with Dominic LeBlanc and possibly other contenders in the mix, the Liberals would have tried to come to a consensus for the long term.

It would have been a critical part of the this whole "renewal process".

But now this issues have been reduced to a simple, even simplistic, question.  Do the Liberals get out of the coalition (Ignatieff) or go forward with the coalition (Rae)?

But the question of the coalition is really about short term tactical issues, at least for many Liberals.  It is about Stephane Dion's legacy.  It is about confidence votes in January and February.  It is about election strategies in the new year.

What does being in or out of the coalition mean for the Liberal Party a year from now?  Five years from now?  Even farther out?

I doubt too many Liberals are thinking about that.  I think that they're worried about getting rid of Stephane Dion in a week or two.  I think that they're worried about short-circuiting the leadership campaign in order to install either Ignatieff or Rae in time for a potential election campaign - and they don't really care which.

That lack of consensus based on true fundamentals mean the likelihood of the Liberal Party being united has faded yet again.

Essentially, the future of the Liberal Party is going to be decided in a panic by people united by only one thing - putting Stephane Dion's mess behind them as soon as possible.

But that is likely to create an even bigger mess for the future.