Manley bows out of Liberal (Canada) leadership race | Globe and Mail

[Ediacara]

Manley bows out of Liberal leadership race


By ALLISON DUNFIELD
Globe and Mail Update

Liberal leadership candidate John Manley bowed out of the race Tuesday, saying he did not have the necessary support to defeat front-runner Paul Martin.

"Paul Martin will be the next leader of the Liberal party of Canada and the next Prime Minister," he said in Ottawa. "I am therefore ending my campaign to succeed Prime Minister Chrétien as Leader of the party,'' he told reporters in a morning news conference in Ottawa.

Mr. Manley made the decision after he and his organizers looked at the figures in terms of members they had signed up across the country.

More at the Globe and Mail

[Maple]

1. Barring some unforeseen

disaster, Paul Martin is the next PM of Canada.

[whirlygigspin]

2. Martin is the one

Nobody else can beat him!

[American Renaissance]

3. Thank God,

John Manley is a red Stockwell Day - he is just smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

[Ediacara]

4. I liked Stockwell Day though

I knew his party would never get anywhere, especially with him in the lead. He was such good comic realief though, the funniest thing to come out of Canada since the Kids in the Hall!

[American Renaissance]

5. Stockwell vs. Manley

Stockwell was a lunatic, and had a paper trail of stupidity going back 15 years. I mean how fucking stupid do you have to be to publically accuse a TRIAL LAWYER of supporting pedophilia.

He was impotent, Manley on the other hand is a very shrewd and ruthless politician, he believes in all the same shit Stockwell Day did, but unlike Stockwell Day, Manley is actually dangerous because he is smart enough to put his believes in action.

[Ediacara]

6. yet

Manley was in a leadership position in the Liberals? I know the Liberals aren't very liberal, more like the DLC, but Day seems soooo much more conservative than the average Liberal Party member...

[American Renaissance]

7. liberal Liberals

The Liberal party has a bit of everything, Manley has gotten where he is by keeping his mouth shut. Stockwell Day fell because he couldn't grasp that saying he believed dinosaurs and humans lived together might hurt his electoral prospects.

The Liberal party is certainly more liberal than the Democratic party is though.

[Lisa]

8. Doris!

(reference to the very successful petition drive by "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" to get Stockwell to change his first name to "Doris" --illustrating a major flaw in his plan to hold referendums on even trivial issues)

I kind of miss those ineptly-staged commercials that made him out to be such a macho stud. They made the George W. Bush aircraft carrier "basket" photo-op look positively suave.


Re: Manley, I guess this does show what a political opportunist he is -- what bets that long phone call with Martin this week was to line up a nice cabinet post? I must admit I'm disappointed with "Beaker" on this one. Perhaps he's decided he likes being Finance Minister and Deputy PM, and wants to keep one of those jobs!
(For DinoBoy -- Manley used to be our Sec. of State equivalent, until Chretien elevated him to second-in-command, possibly to punish Martin for openly drooling over the upcoming "coronation". Manley is a fitness fanatic who ran the NYC marathon last year ... possibly he could beat George W.., who for all his PR hasn't been running more than 3 miles or so since he was governor.)

So Manley didn't think he was going to win -- well, I can think of a lot of people who would keep campaigning anyway, just to stir up some much-needed debate within their party (the recent NDP leadership race comes to mind).

For all my disapproval of Sheila Copps (and I'm from her hometown, Hamilton!) -- at least she is trying to get some issues examined. There are a lot of things about Martin that make me uneasy, and it doesn't help when the party shies away from looking at them. It's as if they've taken that infamous quote from Tory Kim Campbell ("an election is no time for debating policies") and applied them to leadership contests as well.

[Spazito]

9. Paul Martin will be the next PM....

which is fine with me, even though I don't particularly like him. He will be able to keep the liberals in power and that's what counts in the end, imo.