Apolitical Staples

Check out this quote from the Hill Times on the Liberals fundraising (or lack thereof), h/t National Newswatch.

..."Leaders have a lot to do with it," she said. "Ideally you want a leader who causes wallets to fly open everywhere he or she goes, especially if you're going to be relying on individual donations.... You want the leader to rally the troops and you want the leader to recognize people and say, 'Fred, great to see you, how's your wife Jean and your three beautiful children?' ... If you leave the party member in a warm glow from having looked them in the eye, and having human interaction with them and remembered them and made them feel special–which is the bottom line–that party member is going to be much more generous than a party member who doesn't get that treatment or who in fact doesn't show up to the event because they'd really be bothered to go meet the leader."

How can you say that Stephane Dion is not this guy but Stephen Harper is? The lack of fundraising is not Stephane Dion's fault it is structural problem with the Liberal Party of Canada - and at least the article eventually gets to this point.

..."Those parties that have the traditional membership bases that have focused on increasing their broad membership can now benefit from the party financing rules where the limits are at a low threshold, but if you have 80,000 members making small donations, you're going to do much better in this environment than a smaller membership that's not accustomed to making donations, and therein lies the story of the Conservatives versus the Liberals in terms of recent fundraising successes," Mr. Mitchell said.