Real "leaks" begin to appear in Liberal campaign

I think Jason's gonna have a coranary with all the "anonymous senior Liberal" quotes in these two stories, one from The Globe & Mail and another from The Toronto Star.

First, the Globe...

Insiders hint at unrest in Liberal ranks
Senior campaign strategists being pushed to the sidelines, sources say, but 'mutiny' is not in the works
JANE TABER - From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
September 16, 2008 at 8:01 AM EDT

OTTAWA — Stéphane Dion's Liberals are becoming frustrated over their lacklustre start in the election campaign, a lack of coherent message and theme and confusion as to who is in charge.

As the Liberal Leader begins his second full week of campaigning, one veteran MP said there is "a lot of soul-searching right now about what the Liberal Party did" in choosing Mr. Dion as leader.

"Everybody looks in the mirror all of a sudden at a potential disaster and then they start saying, 'could they have made a better choice to make it easier for themselves,' " the MP said. "But I am sure there are some members who are actually pinching themselves ..."

However, there is no sense yet of "any kind of mutiny," said the MP, adding that Mr. Dion "needs to refocus or recalibrate."

Next, The Toronto Star...

Stumbling campaign angers Liberal insiders
Toronto Star - Sep 16, 2008 04:30 AM
Linda Diebel - National Affairs Writer

"It's the children's crusade," mocks a veteran Liberal of a campaign he says failed to do serious "outreach" to Liberals excluded after Dion won the 2006 leadership. That campaign is now paying the price as the Liberals trail in opinion polls and face the prospect of a Tory majority after the Oct. 14 election.

Behind the scenes, Liberals worry about a "loosey-goosey" operation that staggered out of the gate, minus an airplane, to sell a complicated Green Shift plan that bears the heavy stamp of Stéphane Dion, professor. Nobody seems to have even Googled the name to see if it was taken.

"I wish we had one," says the Ottawa-based Liberal veteran, when asked who's the party equivalent of Conservative powerhouse Doug Finley. "There's nobody – nobody in charge, except Dion, and he isn't listening."

Liberals say there are talented people in senior positions – Smith, Mark Marissen, Gordon Ashworth, Herb Metcalfe – but that Dion runs his own show, eschewing advice.

"Dion is in another friggin' world," says a Toronto Liberal MP. "I could go on ad nauseam about how he won't listen to anybody.

"He's not a political animal and he just doesn't get it."

They're not "leaks" per se, more like "cracks" in the polished Liberal image, if you will. But as we all know, cracks in the dam often lead to "leaks"... right before the floodwaters break through.

Looks like I was only 5 days off in my predictions regarding the first signs of unrest in the Liberal camp. Pretty close, considering it's a 37 day election.