Even though I'm no longer a Liberal, I checked out a "community" meeting last night here in Halifax that Michael Ignatieff was apparently going to be at. I didn't stay the entire time because I had to finish a term paper, and thus I don't know if he did appear or not, but many of his supporters there reaffirmed a lot of my own thoughts that he definitely has the talent and the ability to win this race, and about the Liberal Party in general. He brings a lot to the table and is someone who is 'clean' from all of the Martin-Chretien stuff that has divided the party for so long. Even at the age of 58, he's a relatively fresh face in the party who doesn't have a lot of the old Liberal baggage that people can be attacked with. That said, I'm not sure that "sorry, I was at Harvard at the time" would be a good recusal from accusations like Adscam et al. He's certainly got a lot of people lining up behind him, and I've made my thoughts pretty well-known on the subject of Ignatieff.
The Ignatieff stuff aside, I still have deep reservations about the mentality of the Liberal Party. In the hour+ that I was at the meet-up, there was the usual few minutes of Bush-bashing (he only speaks for 51% of Americans because that's what his popular vote was--what did the Liberals do in January?), chest-thumping on Kyoto and people wondering why nobody brought up Harper's anti-Kyoto position during the election (maybe because we're 25th out of 27 OECD countries when it comes to meeting our Kyoto requirements), and a general feeling that a return to majority government is right around the corner. There were some who acknowledged the "penalty box" and the bad Liberal record on Kyoto, but it's deeply overshadowed by people talking about being the natural governing party and how we Canadians are soooo much better than the Americans. I support Ignatieff despite the Liberal Party. It'd be a lot easier if he were a Conservative. heh