I am going to keep flogging that Dion blog horse

This is why. Thanks "WDIK" Grit.

When I worked for the Liberals on Parliament Hill, Mr. Dion was taking on Lucien Bouchard and the separatists after the 1995 Referendum. He was doing it by doing just what he did in La Presse. Writing great articles that appealed both to the logic and to the hearts of Quebecers.

It was well known on The Hill that he wrote his own material. He did not have an assistant do it for him and if he needed to write a version of an article in both languages, he did it himself.

The man can write and write well and the Liberals should let him do so on a more casual medium, such as a blog.

In most of the country the Liberal "Brand" is still held in high regard. The problem is the Conservatives, with the assistance of some of its cheerleaders in the media, have successfully defined Mr. Dion as not being a leader. Of course that is not true but that is irrelevent at this time. There will be very few opportunities for him to counter that meme and waiting until an election to do so will be too late.

A 36 day campaign is not enough time to change things around, particularly when most accounts say the Conservatives will be running a campaign focusing on leadership. It is a strategy that makes for great sound bites and pithy quotes and it will be much easier to report than Liberal policy ideas. So, the Liberals have to begin countering that meme now. If they neutralize it before a campaign, or at least make progress in doing so, their strategy of focusing on the team approach and on policy will have a better chance of being effective.

Unfortunately, the opportunities for countering that meme are few and far between. The Liberals cannot count on major newspapers in the country to publish everything Mr. Dion wants to publish all of the time.

That is why I am promoting the idea of Mr. Dion establishing a blog. It will give him an opportunity to put his ideas out there without having to depend on the MSM to do it. Of course, he cannot produce blog entries like the article in La Presse. It take too much time and effort but he does not have to either. A blog where he posts short and concise entries, on issues facing Canadians, 3 or 4 times a week would be more than enough.

As I have stated before, the Liberals are going to have to think outside of the box to improve their fortunes and one way of doing so is to find ways for Mr. Dion to exploit his strength of being able to write well more often.