Roger Smith reels off a list of other possible reasons for his loss - language, failure to run negative ads, bad strategic decisions, etc — but Dion doesn’t accept his verdict that it was his fault, at least in part. According to Dion, he’s been told that his performance was “fine” - it’s that Canadians didn’t get to know the real Stephane Dion. As for the Green Shift, he says that the party simply “wasn’t equipped” to sell it in the face of the propaganda against it. “If we had been able to explain what kind of Prime Minister I would have been, we would have won.”...Now, I'd tend to think that the person entrusted to manage the future of a political party should at least have some grasp of the party's limitations. And that knowledge would seemingly include recognizing when a party lacks the resources to counter attacks against it, and being able to tell the difference between policies it's equipped to pitch successfully and ones which may turn out to be insurmountable liabilities.
And now, time for the French questions, starting with Emmanuel Latraverse (whoops, got that wrong first time around), who also wonders what responsibiity he takes for the loss. Dion, however, blames the Conservatives for using strategy imported from the US, as well as Australia, although he agrees he should have “better explained” his “avant garde policy.”
But for Dion, the mere fact that some of his yes-men were willing to say that his performance was "fine" - a remarkable assertion in and of itself when coupled with Dion's acknowledgment that a national leader's platform wasn't enough for him to get Canadians to know who he really is - serves as reason to ignore the obvious role that he played in shaping where the Libs are now. And if that message of avoiding personal responsibility remains the defining value of the Libs generally, there would figure to be plenty more failures in the party's future.
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