Now for the hard part

And the Liberals could have made it much harder on themselves today.

I like Stephane Dion and I respect him. He would make a great PM. However, I do question his ability to defeat Stephen Harper. I question is ability to translate his win amongst Liberals into a win amongst the broader Canadian electorate.

I was watching both CBC and CTV today and they both made be cringe when near the end of their broadcasts they began to mention Mr. Dion and Dalton McGuinty's in the same sentence. My greatest fear is he will suffer the same fate and just like Mr. McGuinty's defeat allowed Mike Harris to ravage Ontario a Stephane Dion defeat will allow Stephen Harper to ravage Canada.

He does have many positives but he also has many negatives and unfortunately negativity wins in modern election campaigns. However, most of his negatives have to do with him personally, such as his English skills and his lack of charisma. I am a Liberal folks and I did not find either of his speeches this weekend to be very good let alone inspiring. So I am wondering how non-political Canadians will take him.

So, Liberals are going to have to look very honestly at his negatives and find ways to counter them. As well, Mr. Dion is going to have to begin defining the ballot question for the next election beginning yesterday. Fortunately, all of his ideas would resonate with many Canadians so he has to begin talking to Canadians about them now. He has to take the iniative. Mr. Harper is going to try to make the next election about tax cuts and the fiscal imbalance so Mr. Dion has to pre-empt him and hammer on his three pillar themes. He can keep it general at first and become more specific as specific policies are developed. That is probably the best way he can translate his victory today into a bigger victory over Stephen Harper.

The Liberals have given themselves a very difficult challenge and it is going to take alot of hard work by their leader, in a very short amount of time, to overcome that challenge.