Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf

Something’s been bugging me about this leadership race. It’s sort of been gnawing at the back of my mind for a while. Now that I am out of the country and have a little distance, this festering itch has surfaced as a full-blown rash. Especially now with the membership numbers coming out.

So here’s my beef: it’s the Volpe factor. Now here’s a little Italian 101: Volpe is a derivative of wolf in Italian – and there is definitely something sort of wolf – like, in the Little Red Riding Hood sense – going on here. I mean in spite of the shady fundraising tactics, the guy still manages to be the leader in membership sales?!?

I’d be hard pressed to say what exactly Volpe stands for. But regardless, it would appear that Canadians across the country – and non card carrying Liberals at that – have managed to see something in Joe Volpe that I haven’t. Some sort of vision, some sort of Prime Ministerial or Official Leader of the Opposition quality. So much so, that they are running in droves to join the party. Call it women’s intuition, or gut feeling, or whatever, but I just have an inclining that something is not quite right in Kansas.

I could be biased. Maybe I’ve seen one too many of his “bored out of his mind” performances in Question Period. Or maybe it’s that in my entire Hill, campaigning across the country, Wonderful Wednesdays experiences, I have yet to meet anyone who actually really liked the guy.

Even chatting with some of his organizers at the beginning of the race, I asked them what Volpe stood for, what sort of policy issues he wanted to raise, what he thought about party renewal, etc – and in all open-minded honesty: they didn’t tell me anything, nothing, nada, zip. In fact, they were the least able to article any vision or platform of any campaign I talked to.

I know that it’s naïve to think this, but I would at least like candidates for the leadership to PRETEND to be in the race to raise important issues facing our nation and the Liberal party; rather than it just being about a power grab.

The other thing that I find surprising is that following the “children funneling money” incident - that no one within our party is really saying anything about Volpe. Shouldn’t we all be up in arms! This is the stuff that makes us look bad – really bad – and just reinforces all the negative messages being thrown at us by other parties. Now we don’t even have to look to other parties to smear us – there is a wolf within our own flock!

Why aren’t we more shocked, scandalized, outraged, demanding that he get out of the race? We can reinforce that Liberals do not tolerate corruption – or any breaking, bending of the rules whatsoever. So Volpe gave the money back – so what? The Liberal party doesn’t have the stomach, the chutzpah, or the stamina right now to deal with another bad apple.

And the fact that the number of membership sales indicate that Volpe could be kingmaker at the convention - to put it bluntly - just makes me sick.