Packing Parachutes and Greasing the skids

Ten days til voting day and you would think that the troops on the ground might be trying to squeeze the last possible vote out for their boss, but in the Liberal camp all is not as it should be.


It seems that while the leader is busy trying to salvage the last days of his campaign, those working behind the scenes are making phone calls and e mail messages to prospective employers for post January 23rd opportunities.

In what may be the final sign of a pending Liberal apocalypse, party apparatchiks are taking to the lifeboats and packing their parachutes with amazing speed. While Paul Martin continues to rally his troops to fight the good fight to the end, the folks in the trenches are taking a different path than that of their leader.

With the Liberal campaign seeming to tumble into a freefall of late, the sense of impending defeat seems to be a prevalent theme of those willing to talk to reporters, all be it anonymously.

Much like Paul Martin's old pal Bono a few months ago, many Liberals are mystified by the man and his messages of late. What at one time seemed like a return to the golden days of Liberalism has instead turned into a worse case nightmare scenario, that of the turning over of the keys to 24 Sussex Drive to the Conservatives and a brand of Conservative considerably more focused than many of the options provided before.

Probably even more alarming for many Liberal insiders is the pending opportunity for the Conservatives to dig into the books, the files and skeletons of the many many years of Liberal rule.

With the implosion of the Liberal campaign the rumblings of yet another Liberal coup are starting to make the rounds. The usual suspects have popped up as a possible replacement for Martin should he find his long sought dream of leading the nation dashed on the 23rd of January.

Frank McKenna bides his time in Washington, alternately scolding Republicans and Democrats on Canadian issues, while at the same time keeping the lines open between the Canadian Embassy and the Liberal hierarchy keeping an eye on the days after.

John Manley plays the good Liberal by helping out the troops on the local scene, all the while keeping his profile high and his possibilities open to a chance to rebuild his party.

Star candidate Michael Ignatief, who was tagged at the last Liberal convention as a rising star of the Liberal brand may find that his plans to clean up the mess of the Liberal way might just get an internal hearing. Mind you going down to electoral defeat in that Grit hearth of Toronto won’t help his chances to vault to the top of any Liberal short list.

Brian Tobin finds himself back in the news all of a sudden, the former Chrétien insider who left prior to the Martin ascension now expected to put a few toes in the water once the smoke clears from the firestorm of finger pointing and backbiting that a loss will surely unleash.

Interestingly enough its the likes of John Nunziata and Herb Dhaliwal who are talking up the prospect of change, former Chretien loyalists who were shunted to the sidelines during the Martin reign. The sudden increase in their profile and their verbosity is an indication that many of Martin's problems may have been internal and not external.

Not being heard much is a Paul Martin as opposition leader, there seems to be a resignation to the idea that should he lose the Prime Ministership, he will be banished off to his farm in Quebec, like an old work horse too tired to perform its chores, instead a life of grazing in the countryside awaits. Left to spend his remaining days pondering what may have been.


A good Liberal will always say that there is still hope, that it's not over til it's over and all the other cliches that come out when things look dire. And should Martin be able to pull out of this death spiral in time, he'll be able to certainly crush those that lost faith. But it seems at this late date that many have already come to the conclusion, that the boss won't be leading them to the promised land.

With the campaign stumbling as it has, the old axiom that success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan comes to mind.

Right now, there seem to be an awful lot of Grits looking to leave the Liberal orphanage.