Liberals paying the price for waiting so long to take on Harper

The Liberals continue to trail badly in the polls and Stephane Dion is now being criticized by anonymous MPs within his own party. Clearly Dion is not going to be able to out campaign Harper. It seems that the only real hope that the Liberals have of pulling out a victory is if Harper, or a top cabinet minister, makes a horrible blunder. Best case scenario for the Liberals now seems to be a minority government where they have maybe picked up a few seats.

If the Liberals had gone to the polls earlier they may have had more traction with voters. There were opportunities to bring the government down over their immigration proposals, before that on their budget that did nothing for the environment. Both of those issues would have had at least some traction with Canadians. The timing of this election was at least partly decided by Harper, and the tone and substance of the campaign has so far been very dull, much to Harper’s advantage.

It is becoming very clear now that Stephane Dion is not clear enough a communicator, at least in English, to be able to win an election campaign. I think that the Liberals could still pull out a victory, but it will be the Liberal team, the Liberal brand, and very of a Harper majority, not Dion himself, that would lead them to victory. I thought that the Liberals should have brought down the government a long time ago. Dion was continually saying that he could perform well in a campaign. It would have made more sense to take him up on his offer, watch him sink or swim, and either deal with another Conservative government or reap the rewards of Dion’s awesome campaigning skills. If the Liberals had lost earlier, they could already be rid of Dion and well on their way to selecting a leader who can effectively communicate in both official languages.

With all this said I still hope that Dion can turn things around. I hope that other Liberals are given important speaking roles by the party. Hope only gets you so far though. As much as I dislike Stephen Harper, he has to be given some credit for sticking to simple messages and making sure that the more radical elements of his party keep their mouths shut. Dion lacks the luxury of making his campaign all about himself, he simply cannot communicate his message well enough to inspire voters.