Would you like renewal with that?

While I am pretty sure this has been blogged to death, I just thought I would add my two cents to this discussion.

The [Liberal] party released new rules for the leadership race on Saturday, including a large entrance fee of $90,000. During the 2006 leadership campaign, the party charged hopefuls a $50,000 entrance fee.

Also, spending by the leadership candidates will be restricted to $1.5 million each, which is far smaller than 2006's $3.4 million limit.

The price of grassroots democracy in the Liberal party is ninety thousand dollars.

This entry fee seems destined to limit the field to just the likes of Ignatieff and Rae, the only ones with the ground game and support to raise that kind of money, and run a campaign. To be honest, I am not sure how this will result in the desperately needed renewal of the Liberal party.

This will prevent a "poor" but qualified candidate from making a run at the leadership, while there are some valid arguments for this, I say it will do nothing but hurt the party in the long term. Leadership contenders shouldn't have to suffer because the party has trouble raising funds.

Liberal leadership contenders, only the elite shall apply.

A better system is to have a lower entry fee, something like fifteen thousand dollars, and instead make the entry fee to the convention something bigger, and non-refundable.

This would the leadership hopefuls to run a campaign from the start, and allow them some months to get a ground game organized before expecting to fork over a lot of cash. The contenders who fail to strike a chord with delegates, or win support can withdraw from the race prior to forking over the large amount cash required to gain entry into the convention. This would allow maximum participation from candidates but also keep the convention from turning into a circus.

The plan is still rough but I think it has merit. What do you think?