Liberal leadership donations are down, but what do they mean?

Kinsella: Lots of political tongues are wagging about the Liberal leadership donations–because they seem so small–but it's much ado about diddly-squat, if you ask me. The relatively-paltry figures are all about the tough new fundraising rules that all of the political parties must now observe. If you were to dig into the financial returns of any politician these days–Grit, Tory, Dipper or Yogic flyer–you'd find more or less the same thing: it's not that people don't want to give. They just can't give as much as they want. What's revealing, therefore, is the number of individual donors. That's where a candidates' comparative strength is revealed. So Ignatieff, by that standard, is doing quite well. Some of the lesser lights, like Bennett? Don't get your hopes up there, doc. Powers: On Thursday of last week The Globe and Mail ran a fascinating story on fundraising for the December Liberal Leadership race. The facts really do speak for themselves. There are currently 11 candidates in the race. They are each allowed to raise $3.4 million per candidate. Collectively that works out to a total limit in donations of $37.4 million. Right now the 11 candidates combined, based on the figures provided by The Globe and Mail, have raised $1,310,725. This is truly staggering. Almost unbelievable! Don't follow the money to the Liberal Leadership race. It doesn't appear to be a wise investment. According to the same report in the Globe, only 1,276 people donated to the candidates–yet another sign that this contest isn't penetrating the pocket books of average Canadians. Ken Dryden, a Canadian icon, has seen only 67 people bleed cash for him. Maurizio Bevilacqua, a well-liked Liberal party member, could only muster donations from nine people. My god, even Hedy Fry convinced 15 people to open their wallets for her. Those people must be in the flame retardants business. Bob Rae, considered a front-runner, at least in his own mind, was only able to get 208 people to pony up dough for his bid. Michael Ignatieff apparently has 525 friends, the most of any of the candidates, but that really is a paltry number for the man who is supposed to be the second-coming of Pierre Trudeau. Let me give my standard disclaimer: never underestimate the Liberal Party, but it would seem that more money is being invested in swamp land in Florida than on the Liberal Leadership. Kinsella: My buddy Tim, naturally, is doing what a good Tory partisan should do: he's suggesting that electoral strength is equivalent to fundraising strength. I have two words for Timmy to recall: Paul, and Martin. Moral of the story: A great fundraiser does not always a political winner make! Full disclosure: I am not Jewish, but I love Israel. I am a proud member of the board of the Canada Israel Committee–and I have never received a plug nickel for any of the work I have done for pro-Israel causes (in fact, I have lost a lot of money–but that's a story for another day). I stand with Israel, always. For that reason, I applaud, mightily, Prime Minister Harper for his principled and clear support of Israel. So, too, do I (and lots of other liberally-minded folks) applaud Liberal leadership candidates Joe Volpe and Scott Brison for their unwavering support. And Michael Ignatieff, too, deserves credit for being one of the first Canadian politicians to denounce the Hezbollah terrorists–and for noting that, week after week, Hezbollah fired on Israelis, bombed Israelis, kidnapped Israelis, murdered Israelis, and that, while Israel complained, the world community shrugged, mainly. And what of the NDP? They are doing a lot worse than shrugging. The NDP, in my view, has become the main voice for anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism in Canada. The NDP's relentless, vicious, unfair attacks on Israel have not gone unnoticed–and will never be forgotten. Canadian socialists, who always had such a keen understanding of the historical plight of the Jewish people, understand no more. They–not the far right–have become the home to those who hate the Jewish state. Shame on them. Powers: The terrible conflict in the Middle East, which has spawned attacks from the terrorist organization Hezbollah on the state of Israel, has started a domestic debate on whether foreign policy impacts the way Canadians vote at home. Not since the 1988 "Free Trade election" has foreign policy, and specifically in the case the Canadian-American relationship, been allegedly a centerpiece of how people cast their ballots. Who knows precisely when the next federal election will be called? The timing will help determine what the issues are as well as the agenda-setting efforts of the various parties. Certainly, the "debate in '88" was less about the details of the trade treaty and more about what Canada would look like in the future–that is, whether we would lose our Canadiana or not. The best example of that was a Liberal commercial at the time, which showed the Canadian-American border being erased. In the current national dialogue surrounding the government's position on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, our opposition parties have gone for the cheap and predictable analogy of the Prime Minister being just like George W. Bush. This was something the Liberals used with great vigour during the last two election campaigns. Alexa McDonough got so consumed by this B-grade political theatre recently that she helped prevent a variety of Lebanese voices, who were trying to address the strife in the Middle East, from speaking at a meeting of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Foreign policy impacts our elections in as much as it affects the way we see ourselves as Canadians. Will it play in the election, and how it will manifest itself? It is too early to answer those questions. The Hill Times

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