In today's post mortem editorial on the Liberals, the Globe and Mail concludes the autopsy with the following statement about the party's need to drastically overhaul itself internally:

In their rebuilding process, Liberals need to revive that nearly extinct animal, the blue Liberal.

In short, they need to renew their appeal to people like me.

I am:
a fiscal conservative who doesn't believe in large-scale domestic social engineering projects;
pro-women's rights, with a heavy emphasis on higher female participation in politics and combating violence against women in all its forms;
pro-same sex marriage;
pro-abortion;
a supporter of a tough on crime approach but with an emphasis on rehabilitation and prevention;
hawkish on foreign, defence, and security issues;
supportive of humanitarian intervention and the promotion of liberal democratic values abroad;
pro-American.

There was once a time that the Liberal tent was big enough to be inclusive of all of these things at once. In recent years, however, items 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7 have made it all-but-impossible for me to identify myself as a Liberal in this country, to say nothing of their not-so-great-actually record on 2. They've shifted dramatically to the Left, to the extent that they were competing for the same votes as Jack Layton moreso than the ones for Stephen Harper. When you battle against the 4th party in the House of Commons, you're quite likely to end up falling well short of the 1st party. Until such time that the Liberals expand their tent and come back to the centre, they'll be in second place in perpetuity.