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Isn't it interesting, a Liberal MP was saying yesterday, that Bob Rae offered to help Stéphane Dion pay off his leadership-campaign debt - a whopping $850,000! - but the help has not been forthcoming.
"It's like, he, Rae, wants to have Stéphane on a leash, beholden to him," said the MP.
Isn't it interesting, said another party insider, that Jean Chrétien hasn't come forward to defend the feckless Mr. Dion? Mr. Chrétien, as the official noted, is close to the Rae family. Bob's brother, John Rae, an executive at Power Corporation, was Jean Chrétien's campaign manager.
Such is the state of rumour and intrigue in the Liberal Party of today that such stories have gained currency in caucus. The Rae camp says it's all patently untrue. "The Ignatieff supporters are trying to knock Bob down a peg," said one Rae adviser, "before he even takes his seat in the House."
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All Grits are looking over their shoulders these days. Everyone sees ulterior motives for every act. This week we have had another - ho-hum - anti-Dion feeding frenzy. Low-level party malcontents stirred national headlines - it being a slow news time - with word that the Quebec wing of the party was upset with the Dion leadership. The following day, another crybaby made big news with the laughable threat that, unless Mr. Dion - six points away from a majority government in most recent polls - quits as leader, his party membership will be withdrawn.
Many Liberals would love to see their professorial leader back in academic garb at the University of Montreal. They are probably justified in their feelings. The party would likely do better under a Rae or an Ignatieff - politicians who do not have tin ears and who are much better communicators.
But Mr. Dion has no plans to leave and, so long as he holds the card of being practically even with the governing party in support, no campaign to unseat him has any hope.
In effect, Stéphane Dion is being saved by Stephen Harper and his failure to open up a wide lead. As a close Dion caucus ally, Bryon Wilfert, put it yesterday: "If our guy is so bad, then what does it make theirs when we're tied with him?"
Mr. Wilfert is right. It's a dismal comment on the state of the governing party to be about even with a party led by a man that the Conservatives allege is one of the wimpiest Opposition leaders of all time.
The Grits grouse that the PM doesn't get the kind of brutal media hits their leader receives. But in fact he did - back when he was Opposition leader. And going into the last election campaign, Mr. Harper got the same humiliating media treatment - remember the Calgary Stampede photo of Mr. Harper in his leather vest? - that Mr. Dion is getting now.
Up to three months before that campaign, a great many Conservatives wanted to dump their leader, too. Of course, he went on to win it. It's the kind of memory that can keep Mr. Dion fuelled and ready today.
In Quebec, he deserves a good deal of the criticism he has received. It's his home province and it's as if he's an alien there. The organizational disarray is inexcusable. But the Conservatives are faring just about as poorly in terms of support numbers in the province.
The wimp charge against the Liberal leader has little merit. Had he shown false bravado and plunged the party into an election last fall, what would he have had to throw up against the Harperites in a campaign?
But look what the ensuing months have given him: the Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry, the Cadman affair, NAFTA-gate, the Flaherty follies, a weak Harper green plan and an uncertain economy.
How misguided was it then for Mr. Dion to wait? But according to some, he's a complete bum, while the PM, who couldn't get the early election he wanted, is a strategic genius.
There's a lesson of history to be borne in mind. Newly elected leaders are so ill-equipped that they usually are defeated. It seems they need at least three years of on-the-job training before having much of a chance at winning.
Mr. Harper lost his first federal election test, but won after three years as Opposition leader. Jean Chrétien won after three years as Opposition leader. Joe Clark won after three years. Stockwell Day faced an election instantly and was clobbered. Lester Pearson, the same. Kim Campbell, the same. John Turner, the same. The only time new leaders (Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney) seem to win is when their opponents (Robert Stanfield, John Turner) are newly arrived as well.
The trick for the uninitiated, if history is a guide, is to wait.
