Kennedy's message is bold, but risky

Any party leadership convention must strike a balance between conflicting objectives: to choose the messenger or the message; the candidate who reflects their ideals or the candidate who can win. The candidates, likewise, have a choice: whether to tell party members what they want to believe or what they need to hear. In speaking to the convention, they must decide whether to deliver a message that can win the party, or one that can win the country.

Eight candidates got up to speak last night, and of the eight, only one had a message that was truly aimed at winning the country -- or at any rate that reminded the party there was a country to win. It was Gerard Kennedy, of all the candidates, who seemed to remember that it was the Liberal party that lost the last election -- not the voters. And it was Mr. Kennedy who appealed to the party to reach out to the voters it needs to reach if it is to be returned to power.

Whether that makes him the right messenger is a different question. But Mr. Kennedy’s message was precisely on target. He made three points. One, that the party must tell Canadians that it has listened, it has learned, and it has changed. Two, that it must turn its attention to building support in the West, the future of Canada, where the people, the money and the power are shifting. And three, that the party must rediscover its heritage as the party of One Canada. In perhaps his most pointed passage, he told delegates: “The word spoken on Quebec doorsteps last winter wasn’t ‘nation.’ It was integrity.”

It was a brave speech, but Mr. Kennedy can afford to be brave -- or rather he must. He does not have the numbers for a more conventional appeal. He needed to redefine the debate, to place the other candidates to one side and himself on the other. I doubt it will win him the leadership even then -- it can’t have pleased some delegates to be spoken to in such blunt terms -- but it is a message the other candidates cannot afford to ignore.

Stephane Dion had a different challenge. He is better placed to win, if the chips fall his way, and perhaps could afford to be more cautious. Doubtless he calculated it was enough to cover off some of his perceived weak points: to show that he could be effective on the attack, that he could muster passion, humour and eloquence alongside his trademark logic, and above all to do all of these in understandable English. And on all of these scores he did passably well.

But however well delivered, it was an oddly flat speech, appealing far more to delegates’ complacency than their ambitions, overly burdened with policy detail. And, disastrously, it ran too long for the allotted time -- a key passage appealing to his fellow Quebecers, in Trudeauesque language, to remember that “Canada belongs to all of us, in its entirety,” intended to emphasize his national unity credentials against Mr. Kennedy, was never delivered.

In the showdown for third place, then -- the two candidates with the most to win or lose from their speeches -- Mr. Kennedy got the better of the night. What of the two front-runners?

Bob Rae’s performance was extraordinary, and may well have won him the prize he seeks. A remarkable decision to speak off the cuff -- apparently -- showed off to effect both his skills as a communicator, and the self-confidence that comes with long political experience. It was funny, gracious, folksy, and heartfelt, in an old-fashioned political sense. It didn’t mean a whole lot -- it never does -- but if the issue is the messenger, not the message, Liberals have a clear choice.

Last came Michael Ignatieff. If Mr. Dion’s speech was overstuffed, Mr. Ignatieff’s was almost entirely, indeed ludicrously, content-free (“Let us choose unity over division”), if elegantly delivered. I suppose that was the percentage play -- he is the frontrunner after all -- but given the abundant negatives he has amassed, you'd think he would have made more of an overt attempt to attract second-ballot voters from other camps. Well, he did once: I was pleased to hear Mr. Ignatieff speak of the “Liberal vision of one Canada.” I would be more pleased had he not spent the rest of the campaign outlining precisely the opposite vision.

A quick survey of the final four. Ken Dryden’s speech was easily the most offputting: almost offensive in its arrogance. Mr. Dryden’s chief complaint with the Conservatives is that they are not Liberals, and as such -- as he more or less said in so many words -- not Canadians. I can’t say I was disappointed when he, too, ran out of time.

Scott Brison decided to give over almost the whole of his speech to the topic of the environment. It was a defensible choice, both on its merits and as the political topic du jour -- but it is not an issue with which he has previously been identified. A signal, perhaps, of his support for Mr. Dion?

Joe Volpe was supposed, according to rumour, to use his speech to endorse Bob Rae. Never happened, though he teased us right up to the end. Twenty minutes of my life I’ll never get back. (As if to add insult to injury, Mr. Volpe did cross to Mr. Rae after the speeches were all over.)

And Martha Hall Findlay? That wasn’t the last speech of this campaign Ms. Hall Findlay gave -- it was the first speech of the next. Not for nothing was her theme song “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.” With her unheralded campaign, Ms Hall Findlay has vaulted to the front ranks of Liberal women -- and as such, an instant contender for leader next time around.

It comes down to what sort of challenge the party believes itself to be facing. Is it a matter of winning the next election, or the second and third and fourth after that? Do they need only show up at the polls to accept the blessings of a contrite Canadian people, or do they have work to do? On this will their choice depend.