The theme for this week’s blog is a little esoteric.The Liberal Party of Canada and the Bloc Quebecois have just project managed themselves into obscurity. Both parties will be invisible for the next four – five years.
The lessons that they should have learned:
- Vision is Crucial to Success. The Liberal party platform was too detailed for success. When you write the new one, remember you must tell me “What I Will Have When I Vote For You”. Make the vision one that resonates. Make it short. There is nothing like a good tag line.
- Legacy ideas aren’t de rigueur. The political landscape has changed a lot in the last 20 years. Platforms that used to get out the vote just don’t work anymore. The average voter isn’t interested in the history of the party but ”what it can do for me today”. From my perspective, it had better be about reducing the deficit and taxes. If you reduce my taxes, I could pay for the things that you now give grants for. I don’t need my government to be my babysitter and caretaker.
- The Status Quo is dead. We won’t settle for leaders and platforms anymore. Ask me what three things keep me up at night. There is an
old Native American saying “never judge a person unless you have walked a 1000 steps in their moccasins”. Stop telling me what is good for me and listen when I tell you what I want. Don’t polish it into a platform that I can’t
in all good conscious support. - Grow the Party with Innovative Ideas. If you want new members, stop recycling leaders, interim leaders and those groomed by the establishment. Stop picking policies that are a flash in the pan. Just in case you wondered, it is time for a National Action Committee on the Status of People. As politically incorrect as that statement is, discrimination knows no gender, race, creed or orientation. It is finally time for all people to be equal.
One of my favourite cartoon characters is Marvin the Martian. He has many things that would make a good leader such as tenacity, a thick skin, focus and the ability to exclude reality from any situation. But, he is also the densest character when it comes to observing the situation around him and learning from previous experience. In a very real sense, the Liberal party machine did everything right and everything wrong at the same time. But like Marvin the Martian, they continue to follow a plan that isn’t working. For Marvin, the Earth was the objective only the workflow needed improvement. With the Liberal Party, we had Canada as the objective but the program need serious balance.
We are Canadians and what works in one part of the country won’t work in another. Stop picking programs intended to cater to special interest groups and get back to being the party of all Canadians.
Mr. Harper and Mr. Layton don’t get comfortable. Your turn is coming again. The Pirate Party of Canada will start looking better to young Canadians as Jack Sparrow continues to fill the movie screens of the world.
