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I have been a fan of Anita Anand for some twenty years now, ever since law schoo;. Very smart, articulate, decisive (there's a contrast)Too bad she was demoted from Defence to Treasurt Board, and now to the outer Siberia of Trnasport. Perhaps she stood up to Trudeau (e.g. on defence budgets) and was punished for it.

Pn a different not, 338Canada has Liberals projected at 39 seats, compared with 45. if an election were held now. What the Liberals should look for in a leader is someone to rebuild the party/

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I don't think that Ms Clark is a great choice. However I would push back against the reasoning that because prevailing wisdom says we are in a crisis and broken, we need a leader who has a splashy vision.

If you are running really fast in a wrong direction, you are not solving problems.

We as voters need to start pushing to see well reasoned and laid out plans, based on national priorities. Right now, we get that from no one. But that's an us problem, not a them problem. Axe the tax is the flip side of the coin of sunny ways. Both are empty slogans that are premised on the public not demanding more.

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Voters aren't asking for well reasoned. They want their grievances given attention and they want someone to throw money at them and their problems. No one ever said democracy was the ideal system, just that it is the best system in a bad lot.

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Christy Clark can be whatever type politician she wants to be. She does not have strong convictions, or at least I have not been able to detect them. If needed she can occupy any of the 5x5 squares of David Coletto. This is an enormous advantage for any politician.

I have tried to understand the 5x5 square of economic/cultural progressive/conservative. Does it explain the current lead by Poilievre? Is Poilievre conservative on economic and/or cultural issues? Culturally perhaps, economically certainly not. I don’t think the 5x5 square matches with what we see in the polls. I think there is something else happening here. Maybe I am making the same point as Evan regarding managing vs. revolutionizing.

From what I can tell, progressive vs. conservative does not matter that much at all. People are looking for political leaders that talk about the issues they care about. People don’t seem to be looking for solutions or policies, they just want somebody to acknowledge their fears, concerns and frustrations.

We see it with Trump in the US, Wilders in the Netherlands, the AfD in Germany and now Poilievre in Canada. These politicians and parties don’t offer solutions to complex problems, all they do is confirming a (perceived or real) issue and make people feel they are in their camp.

None of what Poilievre is proposing is an actual solution or within federal jurisdiction. People do not care about this. “At least he is addressing the problem and saying like it is”. You can replace the name Poilievre with Trump, Wilders etc. It is the same everywhere. Any new Liberal leader will have to address this aspect, rather than the exact policy position in the 5x5 square.

Evan, thank you for your articles. It is an absolute joy to read them. Have a wonderful Christmas and I am looking forward to your thoughts and analyses in 2025!

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It's a form of grievance mongering. The NDP doesn't have a monopoly on it after all.

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It will likely be 10 years before the Liberal party needs a leader with some skills. Those that put themselves forward today are wasting their time.

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1dEdited

That’s what the CPC thought, and the stronger candidates sat out what turned out to be two very potentially winnable elections against Trudeau. If they’d had Kenney instead of Scheer in 2019 they’d have capitalized much more on Trudeau’s stumbling campaign, but he’d checked out to bide his time in Alberta, figuring it would be at least 2-3 cycles before the Liberals were vulnerable

Edit: If you’re right, then the Liberals might never need a skilled leader again. Look what happened to the various provincial wings of the Liberal party that couldn’t bounce back within an election or two. Without exception they imploded

The big Liberal pitch is that they’re the natural, responsible governing party. That’s a hard pitch to make from a regional third or fourth place rump, and once they lose that credibility they don’t really stand for anything in particular to rally around

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On a more local level, this is the concern I have with Nenshi’s leadership of the Alberta NDP so far. Lots of talk about how it’s going to be more important to avoid further disruption than to fix things the UCP leaves broken. That a well-run, predictable, status quo is what people are looking for, regardless of what that status quo is

It’s a seductive trap, and I think shows how insulated many otherwise smart leaders are from the day-to-day experiences of voters

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