Go time

It would certainly be tempting to join leftdog in encouraging Stephane Dion to stick around as the Libs' leader based on the continued opening it would offer the NDP. And I can understand the reasons why some Libs would support it - based largely on cost of another leadership race, and the fact that he's already past the worst the Cons figure to have to throw at him. But there are a couple of reasons why I don't see it happening.

First, as I mentioned last night, there's the fact that the Libs themselves apparently not trusting Dion with accurate information about his own campaign. After that, there's simply no way for Dion to trust that the party apparatus is giving him the full story about anything - making the Libs' already-glaring internal problems from the campaign look like a picnic compared to the distrust they'll have to deal with if Dion retains notional control.

And then there's the little matter of the Green Shift. All evidence seems to be that the Libs have no appetite to try to sell a carbon tax again, regardless of who's in charge.

Now, it's enough of an issue that Dion's signature policy has landed in the trash heap. But that's doubly problematic since to the extent the Libs managed to spread any positive story about Dion, it was that of a politician principled enough to try to sell an unpopular policy for the greater good. After all, if the Libs thought Dion was a difficult sell originally, how much tougher would it be to win over voters pitching him as having purged his only positive trait?