Bob Rae Gets The Taste Of His Own Medicine

"Don’t Let Your Right to Vote be taken Away". Who says that? Who is the outspoken fellow that has the courage to speak up for the little guy's right to have a direct say on who should be the next leader? Stephen Harper? Nope. Riley Whitelock, the creator of a 140,000 member-strong facebook group named Canadians Against a Liberal/NDP Coalition Gov't? Wrong again! Believe it or not, that's Bob Rae!

But why would a man who helped crafting the backroom deal to change the government without election, be so concerned about the activist base, about rural Liberals, about almost all of Western Canada, about Quebeckers outside Montreal and about many others that may be denied the right to vote? In his press-release he states that "reducing the franchise to just 76 men and women seems so out-of-step with the modern world". But just days ago, Rae didn't mind reducing the franchise to mere 308 in an attempt to install a party leader, whom the voters had rejected 3 to 1 as Prime Minister. So what happened?

You see, once the backroom deal to force a USSR (Union of Socialist Separatist Rejects) coalition on Canada got shelved, some in the Liberal party started working on another backroom deal - to oust Dion and to install a permanent leader before the Parliament resumes on January 26. And, if instead of holding a full scale leadership convention it all narrows down to a snap decision by the 77 Liberal MPs - bare-behind Bob will be left with... just that. That's why Rae is suddenly all in favor of the little guy's right to vote, campaigning for a quick one-member-one-vote electronic ballot as a constitutional alternative to a caucus vote.

If only Bob Rae had taken a moment to think about all those voters who weren't aware that voting NDP or Bloc means installing Dion as Prime Minister or about those undecided / non-voting folks who didn't know that giving Conservatives anything less than a majority would result in a Liberal / NDP / Bloc coalition running the country. At the very least - why didn't he think about those Liberal voters who couldn't imagine that a party they were voting for might agree to cede 6 Cabinet posts to the NDP and 6 Senate seats - to Quebec separatists?...

Bob Rae gets the taste of his own medicine. If he had been ready to let the voters have their say on the coalition plans, instead of preparing a backroom deal to install Dion as "mutually agreed upon" Prime Minister, he wouldn't have had to fight another backroom deal that seeks to install Ignatieff as "mutually agreed upon" Liberal leader.