It is now clear, and will become more so over the next 48 hours, that the two most powerful forces in Canadian politics are Liberal neurosis and the willingness of the Globe and Mail to hang stories off of anonymous quotes. Together they may end Stéphane Dion's political career, although as we've seen, beating Dion is less of a challenge than it used to be when Jean Chrétien had his back.

One hesitates to try to talk sense to Liberals these days, but let us indulge the mad fantasy a few of them seem to entertain -- eliminating Dion -- and see where it gets them.

He is said to have a stubborn streak. Since there is no mechanism for bringing a leader down after a by-election defeat -- if there were, Trudeau's career would have been a little shorter -- the only way to get Dion out is to hound him out. Assume, charitably, that this takes a month, while the Liberal party does to itself what the Canadian Alliance did under Stockwell Day. Coderre, McTeague and Dhalla grim-faced in the Charlie Lynch Press Theatre, announcing they have to sit as independents. Jane Taber's voicemail full for weeks on end.

Then he goes off to teach the federalism of environmentalism at Unbelievably Boring University and the Liberals pick a new leader. It took them a year to pick the last one. This time, hurrying things up mightily, they manage to do it in 9 months. At a majestic July convention in the Palais des Congrès de Québec, Michael Ignatieff gets a third of the vote on the first ballot and doesn't grow; Bob Rae gets a few points less and doesn't grow; Gerard Kennedy gets 18 percent and doesn't grow; Ralph Goodale gets 14 percent, including all four Quebec delegates, and doesn't grow; and Joe Fontana becomes the new Liberal leader.

Or whoever. Maybe, if Liberals are really lucky, they get this guy. Maybe they even get Bob Rae, the true likely successor. But so what. In the meantime they have blown a full parliamentary session advertising their divisions; holding bitter debates across the country while Tory staffers tape the good parts ("You didn't get it done!") for the ads that will come three days after the next convention; and not doing the organizational work for a general election campaign. The next leader is essentially Stéphane Dion, a year later, with an even more demoralized party and even less time to try to fix things.

In short, there is no realistic scenario for replacing Dion that actually improves the Liberals' situation. So they are stuck with him. They should pretend to enjoy it.

Dion is not making it easy. The party organization is a comical mess. I asked one well-placed observer who's doing policy for the next platform and he gave me ten names. People who aren't on the actual org charts are free to call in and second-guess the results of meetings they didn't attend. Dion watched Chrétien win for a decade and Martin lose for two years and decided Martin was the guy to imitate. With one difference: he decided the only mistake Martin ever made was to exclude some fraction of the party apparatus, so in a bid to be inclusive he has built a party apparatus that is more rickety and less effective.

It is time to radically simplify. Given the disastrous fundraising season ahead, the party can't afford 90-person conference calls anyway. Dion, we have seen, handles complexity poorly -- I never would have believed it until I saw it -- so the number of voices in his ear needs to be reduced.

But even if the party takes a Valium, and Dion takes a hearty set of pruning shears to his staff chart, and distractions dissipate, it will come down to Dion and whatever he has to say to the Canadian people. It is probably not too early for him to begin thinking about what that might be.

UPDATE: Andrew Coyne, back from his annual seven years in Tibet, and our own Philippe Gohier notice that the real losers of the night are the Bloc. That is, the Bloc lost about 18 points in every riding. (The Liberals couldn't, because they didn't have as much to lose.) I'm told Gilles Duceppe responded with his usual bone-lazy sophistry, to the effect that in politics you win or you lose and the Bloc won Ste Hyacinthe. Yup, and if they lose 18 points in every riding in a general election Ste Hyacinthe is just about all they'll be left with. (Inkless Irregulars: anyone want to do the math on a swing of, say, six points from the Bloc to the Tories across Quebec and tell me how it changes the seat totals?)

IN A SIMILAR VEIN, where's the resurgent on-the-march riding-a-green-wave led-by-a-photogenic-leader Green party in all this?

FINALLY, get ready for yet another massive, crushing wave of snap-election speculation. Here is a partial transcript of this coming Sunday's Question Period:


This wave of speculation will last until the ritual wave of spring-election stories in February.