The Liberal Party: Making family holidays even more awkward since 2008

Rocco Rossi’s got your back.

That is if you are one of the few Liberal supporters left who would dare to admit as much among family, let alone try to defend Michael Ignatieff’s spectacular flame-out of the past few weeks.

You see, Rocco knows better than most the new damage Ignatieff’s implosion on CBC Radio’s The House this morning was going to inflict on the flagging morale of paid up Liberals. Which explains this blog post in which Rocco writes:

”dinner table discussions are a great opportunity for you to cut through the spin and get to the meat of the matter (so to speak) with family and friends. In other words, don’t let recent headlines put a damper on dinner. Here are three things everyone at the table should know before dessert.”

Like handing a Shamwow to a tsunami survivor, Rocco’s thoughtfully prepared talking points are intended to defend hapless Liberals against even more eye-rolling, finger pointing and high-velocity bun throwing than most holidays, with such winning lines as “polls don’t matter” and “read Michael’s speeches”.

But the saddest part of all isn’t that anyone daft enough to heed Rocco’s advice will be eating their pumpkin pie on the stoop. No, no. It’s that Rocco’s predecessor sent out the exact same advice to party members last Thanksgiving as Liberal leader Stephane Dion was cruising towards the worst election result in Liberal Party history.

Witness …

Date: 11 October 2008
Subject: Talking Turkey

Dear XXXX,

If you watch TV news programs, you will often see spokespeople advocating on behalf of their political party. Sometimes they will be engaged in one-on-one interviews, other times they are part of a panel discussion, with each party represented.

These spokespeople make use of what we call “talking points” – concise statements on the issues of the day, which they hope will effectively make their case in the debate.

This weekend, millions of Canadians will gather with their families and friends around Thanksgiving dinner tables. If you are one of them, and if your family is anything like mine, the conversation will turn to politics. And like mine, your family probably doesn’t always agree on everything.

So I thought you might like to have your own set of talking points, to help you be a Liberal spokesperson – at your dinner table, at least, if not on a 24-hour news channel. Who knows, though? If you do a good enough job around the dinner table this weekend, you might be ready to sit in on a network news anchor’s roundtable during next Tuesday’s election night coverage.

Have a great weekend. Happy Thanksgiving.

Greg Fergus

National Director, Liberal Party of Canada

Er, Happy Thanksgiving, Liberals.