What's in a place?
Much hay has been made of the fact that lots of Liberal leadership hopefuls are from urban Ontario. This is usually presented as a negative.
Of course, does a candidate's base of operations really matter? And if it does, why are we trumpeting Mr. Kennedy's western origins as a huge plus?
Personally, I'm of the mind that a candidate's location in the country should be at the bottom of the list in terms of factors determining support, right behind how good they are in bed. In other words, I find it irrelevant. (The only exception being Quebec - while it certainly wouldn't affect my vote, I'd prefer a leader from somewhere else, given that the prime minister from 1968-2006 was from Quebec with only brief intervals.)
And if we're playing up the regionalism angle, the maritimes haven't had someone occupying the PM's chair since 1919. (Okay that was a bit shameless, but you understand, yes?)
posted by Ryan Ringer @ 4/28/2006 04:06:00 p.m.
5 comments
5 Comments:
With a Tory loser like Brison as the only one from the Maritimes we are going to have wait a while longer until the Maritimes gets a PM.
It should not really matter, It should be about a leader that can win against Harper and can make the Liberal party a viable choice, again.
The cons have had many a leader from out West. I think It should make no difference what part of the country the leader comes from , but he has to connect with all the provinces and territories to be a true leader.....
I agree that region SHOULDNT matter at all, but I believe that to some people at least, it does. So I think Kennedy's western roots are an asset to him (even though they shouldn't be)
Well it's a bit tough to run a leadership campaign on welfare funding even when you add in the under the table drywaller money eh?
I think it would be nice to have some candidates from elsewhere. While at the end of the day I really don't care where the leader comes from, I think when 80% of our candidates are from the GTA, some will use this to question to just how national the Liberals really are. After all many people rightly criticized the Reform/Alliance parties of being too regional since their candidates were all from Alberta.
The most important thing is whoever wins must have a strong team from coast to coast and have policies that appeal to all regions. We cannot win the next election by simply sweeping the GTA, we need to reach out to Western Canada, Francophone Quebec, and Rural Ontario if we wish to form government again.
Post a Comment
<< Home