What makes this person more successful in politics than another person? It’s an age-old question. There are so many variables to answering that question that there must be many good answers to it. If we took one person with both successes and failures throughout his career, we might not produce a clear answer but it might help in understanding the complexities. Take, for example, the career of MP Bob Rae.
While from 1990 to 1995, Bob Rae served as the NDP Premier of Ontario, the question has never been satisfactorily answered: What are his politics? As the son of Canadian diplomat Saul Rae in the Pearson era and brother of Jean Chrétien’s right hand man John Rae, he can easily talk and walk as a liberal but it was the NDP that first attracted him into federal politics.
As a Toronto MP for the New Democrats in the 1980s, Rae initially chose the foreign affairs portfolio as an area of expertise. He learned the words of foreign affairs at his father’s knee and his socialism while studying at Oxford.
But the effete English socialism of Oxford and London is not the Canadian socialism of Tommy Douglas’ wheat fields of Saskatchewan or David Lewis’ industrial Ontario. The principles and the style clash.
Bob Rae looked for political opportunity and it arrived when he saw the opening in the leadership of Ontario’s NDP. Opportunity was then the deal made with David Peterson to include NDP planks in the Ontario program when the long-serving Conservatives fell. He was there when Peterson over-reached and angered the voters in 1990. It was another opportunity for Bob.
While some might have considered this as Rae’s greatest opportunity, he found he had little room for creativity or to manoeuvre among a cabinet of socialist misfits, naysayers and nitpickers who had never expected to be on any side of the cabinet table. He knew enough about economics to be frightened of the financial quagmire left to him by desperate latter-day Conservatives and the brief spree of Peterson’s Liberals.
It was finally Canadian business leaders who lead him in the path of righteousness and fiscal restraint. He took up the cause of economic Puritanism while forgetting who had elected him and why. While many of the labour movement enjoyed their ‘Rae-days’ off work, the public conclusion was that Bob Rae was anti-union. He could kiss his Socialism International membership card goodbye.
For a politician to forget who elected him is unforgiveable. In addition, Bob Rae left Ontario politics with Mike Harris and his ilk freely raping and pillaging Queen’s Park. Bob really needed a new opportunity.
After tending to the fields of appointments and honours for a decade, Bob Rae became a born-again Liberal. He did not waste time with getting the voters to send him to Ottawa first but went directly for the federal Liberal leadership at the 2006 convention. With the weight of support delivered to him by his brother John and fellow Chrétien loyalist Eddie Goldenberg, Bob came an easy third behind Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. They made up an academic triumvirate of leadership of questionable political judgement.
Today, Bob Rae has gone full circle and sits in Parliament as the Liberal foreign affairs critic. As a Toronto MP, he pays blind obeisance to support for Israel while attempting to balance his stance with support for the corrupt government of Afghanistan. He recently suckered his leader into supporting Stephen Harper’s extension of participation in the deadly Afghan fiasco. He is still waiting for further opportunity.
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