Don't Mess This Up

The London North Centre Liberal riding association board met last night for the first time since the election loss. I pulled into the parking lot not knowing what I would find when I entered the room. To my delight I saw almost everyone present and they seemed happy to be there. Not knowing quite how to approach me since I lost last week, there were nevertheless gentle hugs and quiet words of appreciation. We had become family during the campaign and that sense of intimacy characterized the rest of the meeting.From what I'm hearing, things like this are occurring in Liberal riding associations across the country. Yesterday morning I shared a one-hour radio interview with Doug Ferguson, former president of the Liberal Party of Canada. The host asked what it was like for us now that the party was on the ropes and obviously devastated. I told him I didn't feel that was an actual reflection of the party status at present. Sure, with slightly over 30 seats in the House the dynamics in the Chamber will be difficult, but that's in the House of Commons, not in the ridings. Here's the reality. Liberal memberships are up since the election. This past campaign raised more money than the last two elections together. The digital world is flooded with Liberal supporters debating and cooperating about how best the party should move forward. In a phrase, there's real life in the party. Anger over Conservative antics during the last week of the campaign surely prompts some of it, and perhaps fear of a Harper majority constitutes another portion. But the reality seems to be that Michael Ignatieff, through his hectic travel across the country both in the summer and during the campaign had somehow succeeded in bringing out the base. Obviously the election results didn't mirror that interest, but hardly anyone has been able to really figure out this past election anyway.That's the grassroots situation; how about Ottawa? I haven't spoken to anyone from there since the my last caucus meeting a week ago today, but I know exactly what's going on there and if so, it has the potential to ruin everything many of us have been working for across the country for the last number of years.Some of the higher-ups will be working frantically to find some way of keeping Bob Rae from being interim leader - I guarantee it. Despite the fact he deserves heavy consideration because of his gifts and his past fine performance in the House, there are some in senior party circles who can never accept Rae's leadership in any fashion or haven't really taken the time to consider his ability to keep issues alive in the media and in the House that none of the other MPs really possess in such abundance.And then there will be those fighting to get Rae the job, or who have decided themselves to take a run for the interim leader post. People pursuing the ultimate leadership prize will view this as a time of vulnerability and use it to advantage, wooing people over and setting up their careful plans to ascend to the top of the Liberal ranks. The Liberal party president will likely be aware of all of this and will feel the temptation, as he sometimes does, to manipulate the leadership vacuum to get what he wants for the party.I have some counsel for all of those involved in such machinations: kill it before Pandora's box is opened once again and leadership issues dominate everything else. There is serious stuff going on out here in the ridings and among the grassroots. People are joining the party when we don't even have a leader. That should tell you something. Leadership might be the consuming issue in the Ottawa bubble, but out here in the field it is a minor point, at least for the present. Those people high up in the party ranks, including ambitious MPs, know very well that the grassroots will be where the real action will have to take place if the party itself is to re-emerge. We are engaged here on the front lines, attempting to establish Liberal credibility in the one place where it really matters - among the electorate. All it will take is one whiff of a leadership tussle again and those now interested in the Liberal fate will recede to anonymity.To all of those pulling the levers behind the scenes, remember that it's far more important to have a party to lead than to merely direct a party that will be a rump in Parliament for the next four years. Put the leadership issue on the back burner and get back out into the country where you belong. American political operative Dick Morris recently stated: "Spontaneous combustion of grassroots politics is the future." Don't pour cold water on the very fields where you have to pick up votes. Let's get down to the community level and leave your diabolical leadership  activities for a later day. Please, don't kill us just as we've started to build.