Volpemania: Revenge Of Jimmy The K

Jim Karygiannis isn't getting mad about being fired by Joe Volpe. He's getting even:

Less than a week after bolting from Joe Volpe's troubled campaign, controversial Toronto MP Jim Karygiannis is considering making his own bid for the Liberal leadership.

Karygiannis said Wednesday he's determined to fill a foreign policy "vacuum" that he believes exists among the 11 declared contenders for the party's top job. The unilingual, cigar-chomping "Jimmy K," known for his hardball but effective organizing tactics, said filling the vacuum does "not necessarily" mean throwing his own hat in the ring. But he would not rule out that possibility.

So what is this foreign policy vacuum that only Jimmy The K can fill?

For the moment, Karygiannis said he's going to talk to "ordinary Canadians and Liberals across the country" about the need for a "protocol" on how to deal quickly and fairly with Canadians trapped abroad by man-made or natural disasters.

"During the last three or four months that I was helping with the leadership campaign, I found a vacuum out there," Karygiannis said in an interview.

He believes Canadian victims of last year's South Asian tsunami were treated differently than those fleeing war-ravaged Lebanon.

"Our foreign affairs policy, when it comes to reflecting the make-up of this country, it's a patchwork of different ideas and a patchwork of jerk-knee reactions."

In other words, Canada needs a plan to get its citizens of convenience all out of harm's way whenever war or natural disaster strikes to shore up the Liberal ethnic vote.

Jimmy the K may not be a foreign policy expert, but he knows ethnic politics like no other except Joe Volpe.

Unfortunately, a leadership bid would split Joe Volpe's vote instead of peeling off support from other candidates, thus increasing the risk that Volpe might not win the leadership with all his instant members.

We can't let this happen.

There's only room enough in the Liberal Party for one embarrassing ethnic ward-heeler.

Source: Macleans