Tuesday, May 26, 2009

On party development

Following up on this morning's post, let's note what the outside consultation on (and support for) Ryan Meili's recently-announced policies may say within the stages of a political party's development (which I recall reading several times from either Andrew Steele or Robert Silver in posts which have apparently been wiped out in the Globe and Mail's recent site renovation).

As I've mentioned before, Dwain Lingenfelter's campaign seems to have been planned from the beginning as an opposition movement. And there isn't much doubt that Lingenfelter's leadership campaign has been the most focused on putting forward the image of a forceful leader of the opposition.

But as I recall the stages, there's another step up from merely being the main opposition: namely, presenting one's party as a government-in-waiting. That seems to be exactly the image that Meili is offering by taking steps toward outside approval for his policies - and it figures to be an appealing one for a party which surely doesn't intend to be limited to opposition for long.

No comments:

Post a Comment