As if the Liberals didn’t have enough problems finding a new leader, there’s this: It costs too much to run, and if you don’t win you might have to mortgage the house to pay off the debt.Yikes, that's not a good start for rebuilding. They certainly have trouble fundraising and what's going to happen when the voter tax subsidy is taken away?
The Hill Times reports that most of the 2006 candidates for the leadership are still deep in hock: Gerard Kennedy owes $164,000, Ken Dryden owes $215,000, Joe Volpe owes $73,000. Martha Hall Findlay still owes $125,000 (to herself, it appears), while Maurizio Bevilacqua, Hedy Fry and even Stephane Dion may all still have outstanding debts. Kennedy, Volpe, Hall Findlay and Dryden all lost their seats this month, making it even harder to raise money now.
And the situation will only be aggravated by the party’s own poverty, which can’t help but get worse when Prime Minister Stephen Harper cancels the subsidy lifeline. Small-time candidates will find themselves up against better-known MPs, plus their own party as it struggles to put together a fundraising apparatus capable of staving off bankruptcy.But that's not their only problem, as Steve Janke points out Liberals are stuck in the rut of their own mushiness. They don't know who they are and what they stand for. They tend to be all over the map on almost everything instead of finding a principal and sticking with it.
Then there's the infighting that's broken out. Well at least there's one silver lining for the Libs, they have at least four years to figure things out and try and make a come back if indeed that's what they choose. In the mean time we can have fun watching Jack Layton and his kids in the House and make sure the Conservative majority government becomes actually conservative.
