kenzie mackinnon ns lib. leadership candidate misleads party faithful

if you are sick of leaderships, elections and partisan bickering you probably haven't been paying attention to the current nova scotia liberal party leadership race.

the race has been underway now for the past month or so, with four candidates grinding heads for the top liberal job: diana whalen, stephen mcneil, mike smith and kenzi mackinnon.

over the past weeks these candidates have been participating in a series of leadership forums outlining their visions for the future of our party. after browsing through the candidate websites i found it quite odd that a kenzi mackinnon on his web site would suggest not being elected to office or ever being elected would be beneficial.

kenzi's argument suggests that no mla has retained a seat after being elected liberal premier in the last 100 years. which is absolutly true. however, kenzi failed to mention that out of those who had successfully been elected premier in an election, four had previous experience either in the house of commons or the upper chamber of the nova scotia legislature (no longer exists).

in the coming weeks i would think it would be ideal if kenzi decided to offer party members more then the idea of him not being elected to office as a reason to vote for him. if anything i would think kenzie needs to do two things.

1) explain why a party should elect a leader who has lost three elections in a row, one for the house of commons in 1984 and two for the ns legislature in 1998 and 2003.

2) outline a vision that is more then just utopian phrased political retoric. it is great you think nova scotia needs to be better... the question is where is the money going to come from to do it and how are you going to sell it to voters.

these are two attributes that mla's diana whalen and stephen mcneil, and mike smith (mayor of colchester county) have proven as successfully elected politicians.