Thursday, April 12, 2007

On departures

I'll take a moment to chime in on Belinda Stronach's departure from politics by noting how the decision fits into her wider career path. Keep in mind that Stronach jumped right into the Con leadership race after working to pull the PCs and Alliance together, then similarly ascended immediately into Cabinet on crossing the floor. And even as she chose not to run for the Lib leadership, she kept nearly as a high a profile as those who were in the race with both the Spread the Net campaign and her public calls for internal party reform.

In sum, Stronach's political career to date was marked by a concerted attempt to acquire as much power as possible as soon as possible - and she was more successful than most in achieving that.

Based on this background, it seem entirely likely that her departure can only be explained by a conclusion that she'll effectively have more power at Magna than can be offered to her by the Libs - even after she didn't apparently have a problem spending some time on the Cons' opposition benches until she was offered the chance to cross the floor. And however fallible Stronach's political instincts may have been to date, the perception that the Libs aren't likely to win any power to offer Stronach can do nothing but hurt a party whose previous departures could all be explained based on either retirement-age MPs or personal loyalties rather than such strategic considerations.

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