During his disastrous one-term reign as NDP premier of Ontario, newly minted

federal Liberal leadership hopeful Bob Rae managed to do the impossible: he turned the unions against his party.

This is the sort of political miracle, of course, which contributed substantially to Rae's short term as Ontario's first and only NDP premier, the kind of negative power which is certain to plague him in his quest for the crown so recently vacated by Paul Martin.

No doubt most federal Conservatives hoping for major gains in Ontario the next time out to solidify their hold on power in Ottawa will be cheering for Rae to emerge from the contest the winner.

For they know as surely many Liberal convention delegates will know that Rae ranked as one of the most unpopular premiers in our history. He may not have been as controversial say as Mike Harris, but we tend to forget that Harris, for all the enemies he made, managed to make so many friends that he won more support in his second straight majority win than he had won the first time.

And, as former Ontario Liberal premier David Peterson told reporters recently, "Here's a guy a lot of people went to war with and now he wants to lead the army without even enlisting."

It's called ego, as in E-G-O. And of that, Rae has no shortage.

Rae, of course, ticked off the traditional union supporters by imposing what were called "Rae Days," a ham-handed attempt to force the unions to help cut government spending by taking more days off from their jobs.

Anybody who did not have the political smarts to bring the unions into their confidence to begin with, and allow them to devise their own face-saving scheme since Rae should have know there was no possible way for union leaders to accept his plans really isn't suitable as a national political leader, let alone prime minister. But there you are. Rae is, as he is always happy to tell you, a brilliant man. A Rhodes scholar even.

He is fluently bilingual. He is constantly seen with the "right" as in upper crust, not ideological crowd. And he speaks well. Extremely well.

But given the mantle of office in Ontario he and his finance minister decided to respond to a mini-recession a recession, it's true, he didn't cause by spending their way out of it.

What he managed to do was spend Ontario into enormous debt, the results of which are still being felt to this day. It's a heritage which most taxpayers are not likely to forget, yet another reason why the Conservatives musts be praying that Rae wins the leadership contest.

And he may. After all, the list of contenders, while long, is not particularly impressive.

Michael Ignatieff can certainly match Rae in brains, but he is completely inexperienced in politics. Joe Volpe can match Rae in experience, but remains a lightweight. Quebec's Stephane Dion, one of just two candidates so far not from Toronto the other is former Tory Scott Brison, who has even more baggage than Rae has the personality of a fire hydrant. Well, not quite that exciting.

And so it goes.

The party which has traditionally seen itself as "Canada's Governing Party," now finds itself where it's leading candidates are either turncoats from other parties, fledgling politicians or third-string hopefuls better suited to killing penalties than leading the political power plays.

The dark horse, it says here, is former Ontario education minister Gerard Kennedy, although he is completely unknown outside of Ontario and not particularly well known inside Ontario either.

But parties often do settle for what seems like younger, more exciting candidates. When Rae himself became Ontario NDP leader in 1982, for example, it was those exact qualities which made him a winner.

It is hard to understand why, given the likelihood that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will use the next year to enhance his grip on power, that Rae, at 57, would even want to get back into the rough and tumble of politics when the chances are whoever becomes Liberal leader will have to wait several years before having a realistic chance at occupying 24 Sussex Drive.

But that's for Rae to decide on his own. And since he has, he's got to be considered the current front-runner. The problem is, with so many candidates perhaps as many as 10 by the time the dust settles nobody can win on a first ballot.

And somebody with Rae's baggage delegates either love him or hate him has less room to grow than say Kennedy.

If Kennedy wins that would be particularly ironic because just as many people always said that Rae should not have been NDP but should have been a Liberal all along, many said of Kennedy that he should have been an NDP and not a Liberal.

The head spins.