The toughest choice for most politicians is their last one.
When is it time to quit?
For Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio, he waited until his home state of Florida chose Donald Trump over him in the primaries. Rubio is apparently worthy of being chosen by Florida voters to be their senator in Washington but they'd prefer a loudmouthed schnook from New York with no political qualifications over their own man.
He fought to the bitter end, even though he was a zombie candidate after Super Tuesday two weeks ago.
John Kasich won his home state of Ohio but he has no chance of winning a majority of delegates nationally and little chance of catching Trump for number of delegates before the Republican convention in July. His odds are not much better at being the compromise candidate chosen by a bitterly-divided party. He fights on for much the same reason Rubio did -- the alternative of conceding the nomination to Trump is unbearable. Better to die with their boots on than surrender.
Those are dramatic examples pulled from the currant lunacy of American federal politics but they do illustrate how hard it can be to withdraw from the battle, to step out of the spotlight, especially to adversaries unworthy of respect or admiration.
Closer to home, if there is a template on how and when to quit while sipping from the bitter cup of defeat, Stephen Harper followed it perfectly.
For the good of his party, Harper seems to have realized that the dramatic surge of Justin Trudeau's Liberals to power was as much a rejection of the Harper Conservatives as it was an embrace of "sunny ways" and "real change." His actions since election night speak clearly; he wants to see a Conservative leader win the next general election, even if that leader is not him. His immediate resignation as party leader and his instant public disappearance in favor of interim leader Rona Ambrose, even though he remains the sitting MP for Calgary Heritage and has participated in parliamentary votes, further illustrates that.
On the other side of the federal political aisle, there is Tom Mulcair, who will be facing the NDP faithful at the party's national convention next month in Edmonton. He wants to stay on because he loves his job and he loves the party, which are good attributes a card-carrying party member should expect of the leader. That love, however, shouldn't come at the expense of the party. Mulcair took what the polls indicated was an election night victory -- certainly a minority government and possibly even a majority -- and turned it into the historic third-party relegation of years past. The Layton gains are gone and Mulcair, as his successor and as leader, must take sole responsibility for that, regardless of his excitement or energy level going foward.
Mulcair should go. Since he didn't take a hint on election night, his own party needs to show him the door next month. The message needs to be: "Thank you, Tom, for your service but we need new leadership because we want to form government, not just be an effective opposition party."
With the promising poll numbers last summer, Mulcair and the NDP played it safe, avoiding saying and doing anything to upset or annoy anyone. Instead of scolding the Harper Conservatives for their stance on the niqab and their plans for a tipline for Canadians to report "barbaric cultural practices," Mulcair should have been Angry Tom, launching into a fiery tirade about the racist Conservatives and their intolerant, fearmongering leader.
He should have been angry all summer long. He certainly had plenty to be angry about after a decade of the Harper Conservatives in power. He should be angry now that his restraint cost him and his party the opportunity to govern.
In the end, politics is like professional sports. Winning is the only true gauge of success and losers must step aside, regardless of whether they want to or not.
