i'm just a little unclear as to what the liberals are projecting in bc.

they could just be trying to distance themselves from controversy, without really thinking it through; it could just be a rejection of bad pr, with little thought to the substance. ok.

they could even be throwing the riding, under the hopes that singh wins - but that would no doubt be a racially motivated calculation, as it's not hard to figure out that the reason he's tanking so spectacularly is that the broader left is a little uneasy with the premise of putting a sikh fundamentalist with a magic beard and a funny hat in charge of the country. quebec, in particular, always votes for the most quebecois candidate, and singh is really an also-ran under that metric. dion actually won seats in quebec; ignatieff was routed in the province, and it's not unimportant that he was seen as less quebecois than layton. a native quebecker of irish descent like mulcair was disadvantaged but competitive against trudeau; a sikh born in india and raised in ontario is lucky if he polls ahead of the conservatives, in the end. this is a reality in quebec: they vote for their own. and, as the liberals will need to dominate quebec to hold their majority, singh is kind of their ideal opponent.

that is to say nothing of the difficulties singh is going to face in the smaller cities in ontario that the ndp had been trending well in, or in the urban regions of alberta where a united left could potentially be competitive. singh is running in metro vancouver for a reason - it's about the only place he's not certain to get annihilated in, and about the only place the ndp has any chance of being competitive in in october.

they could get wiped right out...

but, let's ignore that for a second and take the situation at face value: that the statements were not reflective of "liberal values".

are the liberals rejecting identity politics? since when?

the statements come off as something from a bond villain, in a way, in the sense that they sound right out of the liberal war room. the idea that she'd do well with chinese voters is not something that was overlooked by liberal strategists, or something. it's kind of the point, actually. but, you're not supposed to come out and say it like that....

it's a head-scratching reaction, from a party that has recently built itself almost entirely around identity as a political strategy - there really isn't anything else to the "liberal brand" right now besides identity. so, are they broadcasting some kind of change in strategy away from identity politics with this?

or are they just clarifying that you're not supposed to talk about it?