a man in high demand it seems

Iggy likes the Gibsons Shaughnessy mansion better than the Hillman's house in East Van. It all goes with Iggy's royal upper-crust heritage. He's Russian royalty after all.

Iggy is too good the open discussion for everyone in BC? wtf? Every other potential candidate is participating. Someone should tell Iggy he won't be winning on the first ballot. This reminds me of the 1972 series.

Shaughnessy, the Union Club, the Royal Vancouver Yatch Club. The next time some Emerson-class Liberal, such as Ujjal Dosanjh, want's to do an deliberately misleading TV spot telling NDP voters "we share your values", I hope people will remember these reports, which basically give one an accurate cross section of what the Liberal "grass roots" consist of.

I guess the old "class warfare" refrain never gets old, eh Budd?

Iggy should realize that this is about memberships and signing people up - the membership count at these venues is next to nill!!

Gordon Gibson , Keith Mitchell and Craig Munroe -Give me a break, you can count the number of memberships they can sign on one hand.

Good Luck Sir Iggy.

Iggy is the choice of the establishment. Young Liberals, I hope you all went to private school. Or you just won't ... er .... belong. Bring along your striped ties -- that is, if Kilby Gibson thinks you are worthy of attending any of these events.

Remember, Gordon did such a good job of endearing himself with the grassroots when he ran for leader against Gordon Campbell. He complained about the coloured people getting involved.

I chatted with Ignatieff yesterday, as well as his handler, and my sense from both was that they're really hoping for big things from the Gibson meeting (apparently the commitment they've scored from a certain Indo-Canadian known for mass sign-ups isn't enough). They both kind of mentioned "a lot of prospects" out west when I asked them about organization. Funny, maybe they're just really discreet, but the same questions posed a week earlier to Dion's handlers (who were Quebec Liberal heavy-weights compared with Ignatieff's guy - which is natural I suppose, given geography), these same questions brought on a round of self-congratulatory carping about the Marrisen score. So yeah, maybe Ignatieff is more discreet... somehow I suspect not.

My guess is that Ignatieff's people made a strategic decision to go with Gibson, and I wouldn't be surprised if they suspect that Hillman has already privately committed... to someone else. Completely idle speculation, mind.

One other thing, Ignatieff is actually surprisingly right-wing. At the event last night, I couldn't believe how openly he was advocating dismantling things like dairy supply management and the CBC as part of his "national productivity policy". Hello? Anyone home? Mulroney's gone! For anyone on the fence, know that the guy's definitely not Trudeau, he's not progressive, and he doesn't really have any good ideas (even his nationalist ideas are like 20 years out of date...). Better to have the former Tory Brison (who speaks French only a little worse than Ignatieff and) who's actually got a platform and a commitment to Canadians that looks Liberal. A week ago, Brison, completely sober, actually explained to two complete strangers (me and another interloper) a pet plan of his to get Heritage to do a Sesame Street-style french language cartoon to be aired by the CBC. Guts and imagination from the Tory, diet-Harper from the Liberal... No wonder Brison flamed out in Vancouver (where they'll love Ignatieff, I'm sure).

Will Kimmy E-L Gibbler be there?

I guess the old "class warfare" refrain never gets old, eh Budd?

Posted by garth on March 28, 2006 04:05 PM

Garth, if you're attempting to pretend that classes and income levels don't exist in this country, that's just totally mendacious.

Budd, don't you know that using ten dollar words like mendacious is unfair to those who can't afford to buy them?

Budd, rejecting the simplistic and worn-out "class warfare" lens is not the same as pretending that class and income levels don't exist. I think you know that and are just attempting attempting to move things once again into an ad hominem vein. Of course different income levels exist with their attendant problems. My point was simply that your characterization of individuals like Ignatieff was based on the location they were meeting with people rather than the value of their ideas. Furthermore, you ascribe broad values to the people frequenting these locations that are not only simplistic but relies on the ideological "class warfare" lens to discount these people without any real thought or knowledge of them. Lazy...

Quoting Michael Ignatieff:

I have reasons to take the Ukraine seriously indeed. But, to be honest, I'm having trouble. Ukrainian independence conjures up images of peasant embroidered shirts, the nasal whine of ethnic instruments, phony Cossacks in cloaks and boots . . .

My difficulty in taking Ukraine seriously goes deeper than just my cosmopolitan suspicion of nationalists everywhere. Somewhere inside, I'm also what Ukrainians would call a Great Russian, and there is just a trace of old Russian disdain for these "Little Russians."

Now that's better...

"Budd, don't you know that using ten dollar words like mendacious is unfair to those who can't afford to buy them?"

Posted by Billy on March 29, 2006 07:50 AM

Obviously this Billy is not Bill Cunningham! A good riposte Bill, but I am sure Garth can afford even fifty dollar words. Just read his tortured reply, ... starts nowhere and goes nowhere.

Budd, your insightful remarks are beginning to remind of the deep thinking of Tucker Carlson (albeit of an ideologically different bent).