Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is shifting his party to the right. He's killed the centre-left coalition. He's defended the tar sands. Now, he's supporting the Conservatives' law and order legislation.Maybe the Liberal Party of Canada is just too, well, unworkable.He's taking a big risk.
When Liberals "tack right" ideologically, or have a leader whose image is right-of-centre, like John Turner and Paul Martin, they lose elections.
A solid 30 to 35 per cent of Canadians always vote for the party of the right, now the Conservatives. The main political game is the 65 to 70 per cent of Canadians on the centre and left. When the Liberals pursue the conservative vote, not only do they fail to make inroads, they lose a big chunk of their base, and their potential base, to the three left-wing parties.
It's really a Leftist party, but it has a lot of vote-splitting competition on the Fractured Left.
And trying to compete directly with the Conservatives historically proves fruitless in elections.
Whereas Dion was too Leftist and incompetent, he lost votes to the Tories and to the other Leftist parties.
Ignatieff is too right-wing for the Liberals, who will move to the NDP, Greens and Bloc, scared away from him.
Which hurts him worse than he hurts the Conservatives by competing directly against them for conservative votes.
See Also: Did Iggy Blow Big Opportunity?
ht: Bourque
Of course, this doesn't mean that two-thirds of Canadians are Leftist.
Many are just confused and don't understand that the Liberals are actually Leftist.
If those who believe that the Liberals are "center"/"center-right"/"right-wing" are enlightened to the reality that the Liberals as a party are really Leftist, they'll flock to the Conservatives in droves.
This is what the Old Media is trying to prevent, obviously. So they lie about the Liberals, saying they're "centrist" or even "right-leaning".
Obviously, the battle for the Truth is still ongoing!
