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“I could have stayed on, there might have been sparks for me but frankly I am in this for a reason,” Kennedy told reporters after walking over to Dion’s camp.  ctv

Smart.

Kennedy only picked up 64 votes from the first ballot. Dion picked up 220. Combined they have 1858 votes which would put Dion within 500 of a win. Dion owes Kennedy big. And it preserves the Liberal Francophone/Anglophone rule which has worked so well for so long. Kennedy takes a crash course in French, a safe seat in the next election, a serious Cabinet post in a Dion government and a promise of Dion’s support in, say, six years.
The big news is that neither Rae nor Iggy picked up much support. Eyeballing it, Iggy is up a hundred, Rae 200. In the big mo sweepstakes this means Dion actually grew more than Rae or Iggy.

So now the third ballot question is whether or not enough of Kennedy’s delegates will follow him to Dion to put him ahead of Rae.

With only Rae, Dion and Iggy on the third ballot one is going to come last and be forced off. My sense is that Iggy has enough of a lead over Rae that he will survive to the next ballot. But I can’t see where Rae’s growth is going to come from.

And then? Well, then the question becomes whether the Liberal party wants Iggy or not Iggy. In a sense it is a question of whether the party wants a hard or a soft edge. Last night the speeches were as much about style as substance. Iggy promising victory, Rae promising to share and listen, Dion and Kennedy promising reform and renewal and a new generation.

The activists who go to political conventions want to win. But they also have a conception of the sort of political party they want to belong to. After Chretien and Martin - two old school politicos - there is a seriously question as to whether the activists want a guy like Iggy who went to the same political boot camp.

Written by jay on December 2nd, 2006 with 1 comment.
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#1. December 3rd, 2006, at 2:25 AM.

Dion’s support in six years? You really don’t expect a long run for the next leader, eh? More like ten years.

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