It was, for someone who's been to more Liberal events than I'd care to share, an unusual feeling. I entered Toronto's venerable King Edward Hotel expecting to want to flee as quickly as possible; I left having actually enjoyed myself.

Ever since the early days of the Chretien/Martin civil war, Liberal confabs were enough to make one's hair stand on end. The bitter feuding, the territorialism and the paranoia that eventually proved the party's downfall were everywhere. Back in my own partisan days, I'd spend half my time looking out for people I'd rather avoid. Later, as a journalist, much of it was spent listening to Liberals bitch and moan about other Liberals, and I could usually expect at least one person to accusingly jab a finger at me for failing to give Paul Martin the fawning coverage the felt he deserved.

When they gathered last Thursday to fete Sheila Copps - and, mostly, to heal old wounds - the mood was decidedly different. Even with Martin's would-be successors fanned out across the room competing for supporters, there was a genuine sense of camaraderie that extended even to those of us outside the party. After years of mistrusting and backstabbing each other, the Liberals were discovering that a little civility goes a long way.

The general expectation is that such civility will evaporate in a matter of weeks. Leadership battles are notoriously nasty affairs, and a wide-open race running until December could be more so than most. But of the seemingly endless supply of Liberals planning to throw their hats into the ring, the smartest will be those who throw as few punches as possible./p

There are times when it is possible to bully your way to a leadership victory - as Martin demonstrated by forcing his predecessor from office and then pushing every other leadership aspirant out of the way. But what Martin did - gradually take over virtually the entire party's organization when nobody else was paying attention - isn't an option for those who wish to succeed him. For them, it would be much more useful to draw inspiration from Dalton McGuinty.

When McGuinty entered the Ontario Liberal leadership race a decade ago, the low-profile Ottawa MPP was given little chance even in a fairly lightweight field. It was Gerard Kennedy - now a provincial minister preparing to run for the federal leadership - who was given the best shot; after him, Joe Cordiano and Dwight Duncan.McGuinty did only slightly better than expected in that contest's first ballot, still finishing fourth. But as the convention wore on long into the night -- it eventually ended around 5 a.m., because the Liberals couldn't figure out how to manage their own delegate system - he slowly became a contender. Next to the others, who had been fighting a bare-knuckles brawl against each other and rubbed plenty of people the wrong way, McGuinty had one big advantage: the fewest enemies.

In any leadership convention in which there's no runaway winner, it all becomes about second choices. And if you've spent months being irritated by the other candidates, it's very hard to go to one of them when your horse gets knocked out of the race. When an "anybody but Kennedy" movement sprung up at the '96 convention, spurred by the perceived arrogance of the front-runner and his team, delegates flocked to McGuinty. He may have been unproven and uncharismatic, but what started his long path into Ontario's premier's office was that he was inoffensive enough to be palatable.

The current federal race could easily unfold the same way. Perhaps it will be Belinda Stronach, whose deep pockets have already earned her senior organizers and former Cabinet ministers alike, who will fare well on the first ballot and face a massive backlash. Or maybe Michael Ignatieff, leading early but unable to win new converts with his aloofness. Whoever, there will almost certainly be an "anybody but" someone movement - which is where the least of all evils comes in.

The "King Edward Accord," distributed on bookmarks at last week's Copps event, is easy to dismiss for its Kumbaya pledge of Liberal unity. But candidates could do worse than heed its flowery instructions to "be inclusive... be respectful... treat others the way we wish to be treated ourselves." In the post-Martin era, the meek may inherit the party.