Well, you can relax. Everything is fine. Couldn't be better. I ask you: If things are so bad, if politics is dead, how is it that more than 530,000 Canadians have, according to the latest figures, become card-carrying members of the Liberal Party? True, nearly half -- 230,000 -- of those were, by some miracle, in two provinces, Newfoundland and New Brunswick, but still: 300,000 Liberals in the rest of Canada, more than all the opposition parties combined. One adult Canadian in 50 is a registered Liberal, a fully paid-up member of the ruling party. I ask you: Does that look like a one-party state?

It's easy to see why all these good folks have been lining up to join the Liberal party. It's because of the scintillating, closely fought leadership race, as potential supporters race to enlist in order to vote for their favourite candidate, knowing that every vote -- what's that? Oh. Never mind.

No, it's obviously because they are so excited by the party's ideas.

The Liberal party; the party of ideas. They go together like night and day. How do we know this? Because the candidates tell us so.

Take Paul Martin, the PM-in-waiting. Mr. Martin is, according to his spokespeople, very much an ideas man. Why, when he is not talking with Cabinet ministers or denying he is already PM ("there is only one government in Ottawa, and that is the government that is in place," he announced the other day, which somehow seemed to confirm the opposite), he spends hours, yes hours, as recently reported, "developing policy ideas by reading and meeting policy advisors." What are those ideas? Well, er, let me get back to you on that, but meantime let me leave you with one: democracy. Mr. Martin, as is well known, is very keen on reforming Canadian democracy. The notion that a duly elected prime minister could be forced out of office for no reason other than to suit another man's lust for power, or that a minister of the Crown who desired the leadership could maintain a permanent campaign team on the public dime, or that a candidate could effectively be elected leader without ever having to disclose who had provided him with the millions of dollars with which to scare every other candidate out of the race -- well, the very suggestion would offend him.

Indeed, so deep is the Martin team's commitment to democracy that they took pains to ensure they controlled every provincial organization, every riding association, right down to the number of membership forms available to prospective recruiters. After all, when you're campaigning to open up the party to the grassroots, you can't afford to take any chances.

But such is the strength of the Liberal party that Mr. Martin is not the only candidate of ideas to have entered the race -- or to have left. There was Brian Tobin, whose best idea was to spend more time with his family. There was Allan Rock, a true ideas man if ever there was one, even if most of them blow up in his face.

There was, of course, John Manley. Mr. Manley was expected to run a campaign of ideas and did not disappoint. Among his ideas, propounded in a series of debates this spring: that Mr. Martin was disloyal, that he was arrogant, that he dodged an important vote in the Commons, and that he used too many cheat notes in debate.

But, alas, Mr. Manley is no longer with us, and so it falls to Sheila Copps to carry on the fight, as the "candidate of ideas" -- that is, the other candidate of ideas, next to Mr. Martin. Is she up to it?

Need you ask? "There is only one time every decade that a party has a chance to establish its vision and its direction and I intend to be there," she declared, after Mr. Manley called it quits. "I have a vision for the country, a vision for the country that is different from the other candidate and it's a vision that I want to explore in the context of this race." However, as our Bob Fife reported, "a close advisor to Ms. Copps said it is possible she could still pull out of the race, providing Mr.

Martin guaranteed her a senior Cabinet job. If she does not get an offer of a Cabinet job, the source said she will stay in the race." I have a vision -- what's it worth to you? And people say our politics is cynical?