A party divided

The Libs' effective concession in Saguenay-Lac Saint Jean would be a comical enough development on its own in light of PMPM's admonition that only he can fight the evil Cons. (And let's be clear that while it's obvious that Gilles Savard hasn't dropped out officially, his campaign manager has defected and a federal Liberal spokeswoman merely confirmed the facts rather than stating any objection from the party generally.) But in the larger picture, it only helps to highlight the biggest problem with the Libs: PMPM's party is so determined to be seen as the strongest force against perceived enemies that it can't even be bothered to agree as to which enemies are worth fighting, let alone to stand for anything itself.

Within Quebec, Savard's concession is only a symptom of the Libs' wrong-headed efforts to turn the campaign into a referendum - which has led to far bigger names than Savard's campaign manager suggesting that it doesn't matter who Quebeckers vote for, as long as it isn't the Bloc. Meanwhile, the ROC Liberals have gone all out to vilify the Cons with no regard for the number of Libs who would fit seamlessly into Harper's caucus.

What's missing from the equation, of course, is any reason why Canadians should want to vote Liberal based on the Libs themselves. A party with so many internal contradictions obviously can't claim to hold particularly strong principles. And any time the Libs claim to speak against conservatives, or separatists, or any other group, there's always someone within the party eager to undermine that message in order to demonstrate their devotion to fighting somebody else.

Mind you, this wouldn't be such a problem if the Libs had a strong core of values to which to retreat. But then, unlike each of their competitors, the Libs can't really claim to have that: the Libs' current platform is just as much an incoherent mishmash as the composition of the party, and Martin's one attempt this campaign to present something resembling a Liberal vision was panned by his own party as well as most observers.

That combination has left individual Libs undercutting their own campaign at every turn, whether they mean to or not. And with the Cons poised to win government and the Bloc still solidly ahead in Quebec, the only question now is whether progressive voters will do the same as their conservative and separatist counterparts and vote for the party which actually stands up for their beliefs.