Apolitical Staples

I have been passing Rae’s name around our area for weeks now, left, right and centre. Not a CHANCE will the voters in our area go for him and our liberal incumbent would be out, finally.

Rae’s name is still poison in this area, the cursing was unbelievable! If the liberals are stupid enough to have this guy for the leader they deserve the thumping they will get in the next election.

If provincial politics made that big of a deal on federal politics, nobody would have voted for Harper in Ontario after suffering through the Harris years.

As for Rae, I surmise the people are more forgiving than you might think considering his win was unexpected, he had a rookie government and was thrust into the middle of a horrible recession. The cards were stacked against him from the start. Imagine how difficult things would be for Harper if Canada was in the midst of a recession right now. He’s already making ridiculous mistakes even without that added pressure.

Please…please…please…

This would be too good to be true!!!

Robert,

The Harris years only pissed off the lefties, while Bob Rae managed to piss off everyone.

My brother-in-law who lives in Ontario still talks about Rae days and how much it cost him. Rae is a smooth talker but the people of Ontario who paid dearly for his poor government will not forget. He is appealing for some but will have no appeal in the West and Ontario. I don’t think Quebec has much use for an ex NDP premier either. Bring him on.

Rae and the Liberals deserve each other.

sure hope he gets it. that would be the death knell of the librano’s for sure.

also just remembered that it was his motion of non confidence that brought joe who down in 1979

Yup, Rae Days, still comes up all the time here.

Like Andrew said, he pissed off EVERYONE. Yeah, a recession but he ran up the biggest debt in Ontario history plus slashed services and increased fees. If he had run up the debt but maintained everything OR kept the debt down but slashed and increased he would not have been so loathed from all directions. Ontario ended up with nothing but debt and poorer services for his legacy.

I can’t speak for the rest of Ontario but he has zero support here and a snowball’s chance in hell of getting the MP here elected again. People in our area are not forgiving at all of him and the dozens I have spoken with will either go NDP or Conservative, even life long liberals said they won’t give him another chance.

Oops, yes, yes, have Bob as your leader, he would be sooooo good for the liberals! ;-)

Why is it that the Liberal race is full of such mediocre talent? Also, why is it that the Liberal race is so full of undeclared’s? I actually hope Rae does declare so maybe other people will grow some testicles and announce.

I would say that it would be difficult for Belinda but I think she already has a set, or did she return Peter’s?? Someone else’s in a jar, like daddy’s? What she needs to grow is a brain, truly more challenging than the testicles, lol!

It’s like a dream come true !

Sounds like something we should talk about on the Hotstove: what is Bob Rae’s legacy.

I don’t think he’s a serious candidate. There’s no way he can win Ontario. Rightly or wrongly, he’s identified with the bad years that hit the province from the late 1980s to 1995.

I don’t think it’s fair. Rae, in my opinion, gave Ontario the best government that was possible for the time. Consider:

Most of that debt wasn’t his. When the Peterson Liberals left office, they claimed that Ontario had a surplus of $23 million. Then Rae brings down his first budget, and suddenly the deficit is $10 billion. Only $3 billion of that is actually new spending brought in to try and fight off the recession. Do the math. Some of that was the fact that, in the intervening period, more people went onto social services and fewer people were paying taxes, but it’s also the case that the Liberals hid a fair chunk of that deficit, intending to release that bit of bad news once they were safely re-elected.

Remember, the NDP were working with the worst economic conditions to hit North America since the 1930s. We actually came off relatively easy. Don’t forget that this is the same period wherein George H.W. Bush managed to lose the 1992 election, despite liberating Kuwait in a glorious victory that managed to exorcise the ghosts of Vietnam from the American subconscious.

But you got to play with the hand life deals ya. It doesn’t matter that Rae wasn’t responsible for the hard times, and did all he could to fight those hard times in ways that shared the burden throughout the province, he’s identified with it.

On the other hand, he’s a highly intelligent and capable man. Despite all of the things Ontarians had gone through being fresh on their mind when going to the polls in 1995, the NDP managed to return to their core 20% of the vote — a feat that so far has not been accomplished by the provincial party ever since.

Quo vadis, Bob Rae - Why he Could Make A Formidable Candidate for Liberal Leader

These are some of the reasons in favour of his throwing his hat into the ring:

• He is left-centre in social terms, close, in my view, to the real social political critical mass of the Liberal Party.

• His raw intelligence would make Harper – the man who never needed a mentor because he never found anyone smarter than him, so reports said – squirm. There is no way Harper could pull a fast one on Rae.

• He is a consummate politician. Unlike Harper, who seems to be sending out signals that he has a political tin ear, Rae’s antennae are attuned to the average voter.

• He would probably attract enough NDP votes in BC, Ontario and the Maritimes, to lead the Liberals to a majority government.

• Fluent in French.

• A man Canadians could be proud of (a nice change from earlier Liberal leaders – anyone remember the “Chretien Wince” when he announced some platitude as a profound policy?). He would lead Canada into taking active steps to bring positive solutions to the problems facing so many people in the world (poverty, the disruption caused by globalization, the destruction of the international comity by Bush and his neocons). We need a Prime Minister who would address human misery worldwide.

• Certainly no fan of being Bush’s lapdog; he would leave it to Tony and Stephen to fight for the place on Bush’s lap; however, he would maintain civil relationships with the current sole superpower.

What are some of the major disadvantages?

• He proved massively inept economically when he ran Ontario, paying little heed to the results of some of the NDP programs he implemented.

• Could he maintain a centre-right economic policy?

• Is he a Liberal, or still an NDPer at heart? How deep has his conversion gone?

My basic requirements before I would consider supporting Rae for Liberal Party leader revolve around his view on certain major issues, including:

• Democratic deficit - Has he a detailed formulation for resolving the “democratic deficit”? We say Martin champion it as a flavour-of-the-day but do very little to remedy the deficit. If Martin had tackled this deficit as fiercely as he tackled the economic deficit years ago, he would be Prime Minister of a majority Liberal Party today.

• Voting fairness - Is he prepared to make a reasonable form of proportional representation (PR) a major plank in the Liberal platform? It so obviously meets many of the deep needs of Canadian voters, that it has to be addressed by any serious candidate for leadership of the Liberal Party and potential Prime Minister.

• Quebec - Would be commit in his program not to change the nature of the Canadian confederation in the stealthy way which Harper is promising, with his “new federalism” and “fiscal imbalance” coded framing. Could he find a way to keep Quebec contented, without dismantling the Canada we know and are proud of in the process, as Mulroney tried with his initiatives, and Harper’s programs seemed aimed at doing?

So, let’s have a look at your program, Mr Rae; then we can judge whether you are the person we wish to be the next Prime Minister of Canada.

If Rae were to win the Liberal leadership, maybe Mr.Harper can convince Mike Harris to run in a by-election and join his cabinet prior to the next election. Having the daily visual of the former premier who cleaned up Rae’s substantial mess would do alot to remind Ontarians in particular as to how bad “Buffalo” Bob Rae was the first time around.

For those who need a dollars and sense reminder… dig up a 1994 tax return and plug the same numbers into a 2002 one (pre-Dalton). Have a look at what Rae’s Queen’s Park cost you…

We need a Prime Minister who would address human misery worldwide.

We do?