Trapped in Suburbia…

Its no surprise that the Liberal leadership contest will be a two horse race pitting former Ontario Premier – and NDP Premier at that – Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff. Certainly, proposals such as preventing candidates from the last leadership race who still have outstanding debt from re-entering the race is an attempt to abbreviate the race.

Whether or not having a shortened race with a limited field of candidates is good or bad for the Liberal Party, and for Canadian democracy, is something that only time will tell.

In any case, the gloves are already coming off in what was supposed to be a principled campaign for the party leadership. 

Bob Rae walked out of a “Leadership Forum” accusing Michael Ignatieff of closing the forum to the media. The Globe and Mail reports:

Bob Rae moved to check the early lead of Liberal leadership rival Michael Ignatieff by accusing him of preparing a “peekaboo” campaign, and refusing to allow a session with candidates to be held in public.

The weekend brouhaha at a meeting of Liberals from Ontario made it clear that Mr. Ignatieff is viewed as the leading contender, and that Mr. Rae’s first goal is to ensure his opponent does not quietly coast through the race.

On Sunday, Mr. Rae boycotted a leadership “forum” where candidates were to take questions from riding presidents and other party officials, after Mr. Ignatieff refused calls from his two rivals to open the session to reporters and cameras.

“There is a fray: It’s called a leadership race. And you can’t very well stay above it. If you want to stay above it, you’re not going to be in it,” Mr. Rae said outside the meeting at a Mississauga hotel.

“The Liberal Party is a political party. It’s not a private club.”

The squabble over the Mississauga leadership forum was the first real exchange of jabs between leadership contenders since Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion announced he would step down last month after his party’s Oct. 14 election defeat.

I guess the Ignatieff campaign leaned from the gaffes of the last campaign and is trying to keep Michael out of the glare of the media. I doubt that’s going to work out well for them. In any case, it looks like the knives are already out between Rae and Ignatieff, maybe this thing will get interesting after all.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 9:37 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.