Liberal Brand Suffers Severe Damage

A new poll just out has suggested that the Liberal party is suffering severe damage to it's brand. Very few respondents in the poll had few positive things to say about the party.

Based on first mentions, it is clear that the Liberal Party brand is severely damaged and the negativity associated with the party extends beyond Michael Ignatieff’s leadership.
These results suggest that the Sponsorship Scandal continues to hurt the Liberal brand and the residual effect is a lasting association with corruption, arrogance, and dishonesty.
Most troubling for the Liberal Party is that very few respondents mentioned positive phrases or words about the Liberal Party. Instead, comments described the party as having weak leadership, being dishonest and corrupt, and divided.

That is not good if Iffy wants to defeat the government and take us into in an election this spring. On the other hand the same poll also shows the Conservatives and the NDP are in much better shape.

A new Abacus Data National Poll finds that relatively speaking, the Conservative and NDP brands are in a better position heading into a possible spring federal election than the Liberal brand.
Respondents were asked to identify what first came to their minds when they think about each major national party.  The results are displayed in word clouds found below or in the detailed report found here.
“Stephen Harper and Jack Layton dominate their respective brands,” said Abacus Data CEO, Dr. David Coletto.  “The popularity of each party is heavily influenced by how Canadians view the Conservative and NDP leaders.”
While high recognition rates can be a positive factor, dominance by a single leader can also produce problems.
“The good news for the Conservative Party is that many Canadians associate the party with the economic recovery and low taxes,” said Coletto.  “Despite the fact that Canadians continue to worry about the economy and their jobs, the opposition has not been able to dislodge the Conservative advantage on the economy.”
The opposition Liberal Party had the bleakest results.  Very few Canadians mentioned anything positive about the party, with most comments describing the party as lacking good leadership, being corrupt or dishonest.
“Canadians seem to still identify the Liberal party by its past wrongs, perhaps as a result of a lack of direction, internal division, and weaker leadership over the past few years,” said Coletto.  “Weak leadership and internal division is the Liberal brand as they enter 2011.”
Finally, the NDP continues to be a conflicted brand.  The NDP and its leader Jack Layton are well regarded by Canadians but only one in five said would vote for it in Abacus Data’s poll released in early December.
“The NDP is very much a function of Jack Layton,” said Coletto.  “The NDP is seen by Canadians as a caring party that defends the interests of working people but its policies are considered unrealistic my many.”

I think the Liberals should think hard and long before they defeat the government  If they want to go into an election fine but they'll  also suffer the consequences. They badly lost the trust of Canadians and have a long way to go gain it back again and it's not just changing leaders.  It goes way deeper than that.

Probably the best thing for Liberals maybe is an election result with a Conservative majority and NDP as official opposition.  They would then have at least four years to figure out who they are,what they stand for and rebuild from the bottom up. Maybe just maybe there too wouldn't be so much muck raking and making up faux scandals that they would actually work at developing some credible policy and act like an official opposition and government in waiting.  Then maybe they could earn back the public's trust again. Look how long it took Conservatives. It took years before we actually figured things out and got our act together. Thank God we finally did.  The country is better off for it.   It will take Liberals at least that long if not more.

This related from WK 

Far and Wide: Steve V. calls for a cultural change in the Liberal Party, bottom to top.  He says that’s the only thing that’ll make it relevant.  He’s right, of course.  It will also never happen.  Carry on as you were.

Conservatives Lead on Issues

Will we or won't we be going to the polls in 2011?  The rhetoric has been ramped up again in recent days amongst  the pundits with MIA(Michael Ignatieff) bellowing, threatening to bring the government down in the New Year  then only days later he tones  down that rhetoric a bit.    Have we not seen this movie before? Anyway, even if we do end up going into an election in the near future, Conservatives not only have the edge in  voter preference but also lead  on the issues as well.   They look that they're more tuned into what the public is most concerned about than the opposition is.

Heading into the new year, Canadians have pegged the economy, health care and the environment as the three priorities they'd like to see politicians give the greatest attention to, the results showed.
"When you're going into an election, you're planning your strategy," said Darrell Bricker, a spokesman with Ipsos Reid, which conducted the poll exclusively for Postmedia News and Global Television. "So you have to find a salient issue, something that people really care about, and somewhere where you can daw a partisan difference between yourself and your opponents."
The Tories definitely have a leg up, Bricker said, with 29 per cent of Canadians polled saying they'd like to see the country's leaders focus on the economy.
"It just shows the strength of the Tory positioning because they're seen as the best on the biggest issue," he said. "The Liberals haven't found an issue, but the Tories have a 20 to 25 per cent advantage on just about every economic question you want to ask."

 So Bricker states that the Liberals haven't found an issue,well that  says a lot about the all the tours the leader has been on in the last year like the Magical Bus tour then the Open Mike tour.  It says Liberals have not really listened to what is important to Canadians, that they're out of touch and the public is not buying what the Liberals are selling. That bodes well for the CPC going forward.

CBC Retirees Double Dipping?

As part of Brian Lilley's series on the CBC he's discovered that dozens of retirees have been hired back as consultants or contractors and of course we pay their pensions and their consultant or contractor fees. So could they be double dipping? I would say so.

OTTAWA - CBC hires back dozens of retirees each year as contractors or consultants.
Documents obtained through access to information show that between 2005 and
2007 the state broadcaster hired 125 people who were also receiving an annuity or pension from CBC.
The records took three years to obtain and required the intervention of the federal information commissioner. At first CBC refused to release any records, claiming all records were considered personal information and not subject to the access law.
After an investigation by the information commissioner's office, CBC agreed to release the total number of retirees hired back on contract.
The practice of retirees returning to work as consultants in federal government departments is not uncommon in the federal government and is often referred to as ³double-dipping.² In 2005 CBC hired back 21 retirees, 37 in 2006 and 67 in 2007.

Wouldn't  Mr. Braaa.....dcast Don Newman former host of the old CBC Politics show come to mind as one of those "retirees" that have been hired back?  Because he now writes a column on the CBC website and appears on panels etc on CBC television from time to time. How much is he and others sucking out of the taxpayer by doing this?  I would like to know. He's probably receiving a pension and collecting a fee or a salary or whatever.    I hope when the information committee investigates the CBC after the Christmas recess, we  can find out. 

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.

Liberals Still Entitiled to Their Entitlements

It must be in the Liberal DNA because the last five years out of power, the Liberals sure have not learned anything. They still have that arrogant sense of entitlement.This right out of the leader's mouth:

“They want to win. It’s just that simple,” Ignatieff said. “They don’t like being in opposition. We’re a party that’s governed the country. We’re not like the Bloc or the NDP who think this is dying and going to heaven. We think this is purgatory and we want to get back to the business of governing the country and we know the only way we can do that is if we’re united.”

Wow! Doesn't sound like they've been very humbled at all by having to sit in the opposition benches.  Just that statement alone proves they should not be returned to power any time soon. They were voted out of office for that very reason,the sense of entitlement. Power is all the Liberals care about. They don't care the county. They don't care about you. All they care about is stealing your money. You see they have a very tough time in the fund-raising department and they need the money. . They act like junkies when they can't get their fix.

. All they do is bleat and howl like banshees at government  while offering no ideas or alternatives of their own. They cry outrage at issues that the public doesn't care about re-prorogation, Afghan detainees etc.  They've been in this constant mode,with the help of their talking head friends in the Lame stream Media of finding and manufacturing faux scandals trying to make the Conservatives look bad. They haven't done anything to earn their way back to power.

Don't let them fool you.  They will do anything, say anything, try any stunt under the sun to get those keys back.

I hope the Tory war room is tucking statements  like this away in a safe place so that they can remind voters  come next election that Liberals haven't learned a darn thing since being turfed out five years ago.