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According to one theory, you have to reach rock bottom before you can start to rebuild. The federal Liberals are testing the proposition.

The party’s leadership wakes up this morning to a new nadir in their fortunes, following the Facebook rant of Janine Kreiber, wife of former leader Stéphane Dion.

“The Liberal Party is falling apart, and will not recover,” she wrote, in a bitter tirade that offered a scathing indictment of Michael Ignatieff’s leadership.

“... I will not give my voice to a party that will end up in the trashcan of history.”

One person’s opinion, nothing more, is the line of the Liberal talking heads. Yet Ms. Kreiber’s rant merely reflects a growing body of opinion among senior figures in the party, albeit ones who are no longer at the centre of its operations.

They would never agree to be quoted, but they gaze upon the fortunes of the former natural governing party with despair. A series of weak leaders, starting with former prime minister Paul Martin, has gutted the infrastructure of the party and eroded its base to a frighteningly low level.

A weekend Ipsos Reid poll as the Liberals at 24 per cent, about where the party was when it was at its most unpopular under Mr. Dion. That same poll has the NDP vaulting to 19 per cent. Some of those may be parked votes that could swing back to the Liberals in an election, but the fact remains that the prospect of government is very, very far away.

Two problems lie at the root of the party’s misfortunes: first, weak and divided leadership has made it difficult for the Liberals to re-establish a party machine in French Quebec, in Ontario outside the big cities, in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, and in winnable Prairie cities such as Regina and Winnipeg.

As a result, the old fissures in the party are re-emerging: the Bob Rae camp chafing at Mr. Ignatieff’s alleged ineptitude, the regional wings lacerating the Toronto-centric leader's office.

Second, the Liberals don’t stand for anything. Mr. Dion courageously trumpeted an environmental agenda that most voters didn’t buy or didn’t care about. Mr. Ignatieff, in contrast, speaks of fighting global warming, of reining in the deficit, of making Canada more competitive in global markets.

The Conservatives mouth the same platitudes, but at least they have budgets and legislation to put flesh on the bones of their priorities, which also include an emphasis on law-and-order and a new kind of red-meat patriotism — celebrating the armed forces and offering a robust new definition of citizenship to immigrants hoping to gain it — that the Liberals are unable to respond to.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been to India and is soon on his way to China, in part to persuade new Canadians that a Conservative government shares their values and values their votes, threatening a core element of what is left of the Liberal base.

Peter Donolo, Mr. Ignatieff’s newly minted chief of staff, no doubt tells himself: here is where we are at; the trajectory can only go up.

It will only go up marginally, however, unless the latest Liberal Leader can conjure a convincing picture of Canada under his leadership — one specific enough for us to imagine it, and to be engaged by it.

For now, people shake their heads over drinks in bars, and share quietly with each other the sentiments Ms. Kreiber shouted out loud.

(Editorial cartoon by Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail)