Liberal Party Not As It Seems

Liberals say they're a strong united party ready to fight an election whenever that may come. Their leader vows to trigger an election in the new year although it looks like he's starting  to climb back down that hill a bit.

 However, when asked if the Liberals will vote in support of the Conservative budget in the coming session, Ignatieff said he cannot make a decision without first seeing the document.
"Let me read the thing first. I'm not like Mr. Layton, who votes for things before he's even read it," Ignatieff said, taking a shot at his NDP rival for saying that he would vote down the government's stimulus plan even before it had been tabled.
But Ignatieff definitively said that he would be prepared to vote down the budget and topple the government if the legislation doesn't mesh with what's good for the country.

Are they ready?  Not quite so as it seems.  Publicly the party will "appear" united and that every thing is hunky dory but privately they are deeply divided as Angelo Persichilli so aptly points out. Apparently  the Liberal infighting and divisions are vastly different than when the Tories were divided.

It took 10 years, from 1993 to 2003, for the Conservatives to put aside most of their differences and work together. It’s ironic that the same year the Tories started bridging their differences, the Liberals grew apart.Moreover, the division among them is more dangerous. The Conservative fight was in the open and the division was a clear split between two visions. The Liberals are more than divided, they are fragmented by personal vendettas, jealousies and a lack of leadership.
Despite the front of a happy family, they are fighting each other over differences from the past while creating new ones. This fight no longer has anything to do with Martin and Chrétien; it’s about the metastasis of that disease which has taken on a life of its own.

Why? Angelo answers that too:

Why is all this happening? The problem is that spoiled individuals who have taken over the party are using it to pursue feuds with their personal Liberal enemies.
This problem can be corrected only by using a big broom to get rid of them all, and a good place to start would be in the office of the present leader.
But in order to do that, you need a credible, respected and strong leader. Such a leader is nowhere to be seen.  

Oooh, ouch!  Could this be the reason he's starting to back down  from his election rhetoric again? There are plenty of problems within the Liberal party. They have a tough time raising funds, have no credible policy etc. and  all that infighting doesn't help.. Maybe, if they want to earn their "earn" their way back into office,they should stop the muckraking,trying to make the Conservatives bad, work on cleaning up their own party  instead acting like petulant little children all the time. Maybe then the public will take them seriously again.
Until then they're not ready or qualified to govern. They need to learn to govern themselves first.