Pubdate: Sun, 15 Jan 2012
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2012 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: John Ibbitson, Columnist, Globe and Mail

LIBERALS TAKE FIRST STEP TO REVIVAL WITH YOUNGER FACE

The Liberal Party is inviting the whole electorate to help choose its 
next leader, after a weekend conference pried the levers of power from 
the party elite, picking a young, denim-clad entrepreneur as president 
and calling for legalization of marijuana.

Interim leader Bob Rae dominated the gathering, championing the push 
to open up the party and adding fuel to a bonfire of speculation about 
whether he wants the permanent job.

The future of the party remains unsettled. President Mike Crawley's 
victory over Chretien-era cabinet minister Sheila Copps, who was 
backed by the Liberal establishment, was paper-cut thin. And 
Conservatives are bound to claim delegates were more concerned with 
keeping potheads out of jail than with rescuing the middle class from 
its economic doldrums.

But the boldest decision was a move that takes Canadian politics even 
closer to the American model, as more than two-thirds of voting 
delegates supported the idea of creating a new category known as 
Liberal "supporters." Those individuals will not have to become 
card-carrying members of the party. Simply by signing up, they will be 
eligible to vote for the next party leader, as registered voters do 
during the primary contests now under way in the United States.

"When it comes to political parties [people] want to date, not marry," 
one delegate explained during the debate. Party officials hope that as 
many as a million Canadians will hook up with the Liberals to choose 
the next leader in the spring of 2013.

It took courage for party members, and especially for the elites 
within the party who influence the rank-and-file, to surrender control 
over leadership selection. Many fear that Conservatives or NDPers will 
sign up to rig the vote. Anti-abortionists, extreme environmentalists 
and would-be Svengalis of all sorts could all take a shot at capturing 
the leadership.

But hijacking a national party is no easy thing. No one has yet won 
the Democratic or Republican nomination who was not a Democrat or a Republican.

A proposal to move to a system of regional primary contests, which 
would have further mirrored the American model, failed to garner the 
two-thirds majority required to pass. It was, in the end, a reform too far.

Mr. Rae embraced the delegates' decision to advocate not just 
decriminalizing marijuana   as the party started to do when it was 
last in government, before backing off   but legalizing and regulating it.

"If you want to be part of a group of free-thinking, innovative, 
thoughtful, pragmatic, hopeful, positive, happy people, come and join 
the Liberal party," Mr. Rae exhorted during his closing speech, 
adding: "And after the resolution on marijuana today, it's going to be 
a group of even happier people."

In another display of free thinking, delegates chose Mr. Crawley as 
national party president over Ms. Copps, the former deputy prime 
minister. Mr. Crawley is a lanky 42-year-old long-time Liberal 
activist who started up his own wind-and-solar power company. He was 
the emphatic choice of the youth wing of the party.

But he defeated Ms. Copps by only 26 votes. And the old rivalries were 
there in the corridors: the Chretien wing of the party supporting Ms. 
Copps for president and Mr. Rae as permanent rather than just interim 
leader; the Paul Martin wing endorsing Mr. Crawley, who is rumoured to 
be less than enamoured with the idea of letting Mr. Rae convert his 
temporary job into a permanent one.

No one should think for a minute that Liberals have banished their 
ghosts. The divisions and the feuds remain. And though the party put 
in place new mechanisms for improving fundraising and reviving the 100 
ridings across the country where it is effectively moribund, the 
actual business of accomplishing these goals still lies ahead.

Beyond that, the Liberal Party still has yet to tell Canadians what it 
is, other than not right or left wing. It has yet to tell us what it 
would do if it were given power.

That, along with continuing to heal, represents its biggest challenge. 
But there will be more than a year for leadership contestants to 
define what, for them, Liberalism should be about.

And everyone who wants to can now have a say in the outcome.
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MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.