Strategery run amok

To follow up on the Hill Times report that Frank McKenna might yet win the Lib leadership race by acclamation, it's worth noting that at least a few of the Lib sources cited seem entirely willing to hand Harper a majority if it'll help them to draft their preferred leader:

First, the said Liberals want to create a vacuum around all 11 candidates, in terms of support, financing and policy, in an effort to asphyxiate them. This is not hard: in the last few weeks, the only mention of the Liberal leadership race in the media has been about Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis.

It would seem many are on holidays.

There are rumours about the lack of financial support in many campaign organizations. Some are saying that many have problems meeting the payrolls for their organizers. The only candidates who have no problems in financing their organizations are those who have no organizations.

Second step: spread rumours among the grassroots that none of the present candidates has the ability to defeat Stephen Harper in the next election. Even this concept, considering what we've seen up until now, is not hard to sell.

At this point, what you need are rumours that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is about to provoke a snap election in the fall and if that message succeeds, then you've hit the jackpot, meaning there is panic among the Liberals...

(T)his master plan might work with one condition: Mr. Harper could dissolve the House. In fact, this might be more a Liberal aspiration than a Harper plan. Many Liberals are already convinced that Harper will win a majority in the next federal election, so why wait another two or three years before he starts his second term?

I'll grant that it isn't clear from the article how much of the "plan" is simply conjecture from Persichilli. But from the text the idea does appear to have been drawn from "Liberal strategists". Which means that people from inside the party supposedly dedicated to stopping Harper are not only planning to hand him unchecked power, but expressing a willingness to weaken the hand of their own party in order to get it done as quickly as possible.

Of course, one could make the argument that such a plan could ultimately improve the Libs' standing in the long run by increasing the likelihood of a polarized electorate and thereby undercutting the NDP - which is presumably how the "strategists" involved earned their title. But the flip side is that a sudden, self-induced collapse by the Libs could turn the NDP into the preferred alternative to Harper sooner rather than later...particularly if McKenna or any other would-be leadership appointee decides that a party which is actively trumpeting its own lack of resources and competence may not be the best place to build one's legacy.

Mind you, the potential ascension of the NDP may take awhile to make up for the damage that would be done by a Harper majority. But at least in that scenario Canada's acknowledged progressive alternative would be free of the self-destructive impulse that seems to be the current Lib modus operandi.