Alternate Liberal Leader In 2006

What if somebody other than Stephane Dion won the Canadian Liberal leadership in 2006? Say Ignatieff, Rae, Kennedy or if McKena, manley or one ofc the others ran. What would be the effects? Could the liberals win in 2008 or 2011, or at least avoid the Orange Crush? What if?
 
The thing is, without Dion as leader I'm guessing an election is held a lot earlier - Dion went down in the polls somewhat quickly and the Liberals weren't exactly eager to bring down the government until this reversed itself. Without Dion I'm guessing an election is probably held about a year earlier than OTL (when IOTL, it's worth noting, the Liberals were in a more competitive position).

McKenna has a pretty respectable reputation, so I think he'd do the best out of anyone, and in my opinion be likely to win a 2007 election.

Iggy, as OTL proved, would clearly be vulnerable to attacks, but despite the end result of the 2011 election he seemed to be running a pretty solid campaign before the "Orange Crush" occured. And while I'm not saying that couldn't happen again, I don't think it's very likely, as at that time the NDP had only just begun building itself up un Quebec. All in all though I think he does slightly better than Dion, but not by very much.

Rae, like Iggy, would also be vulnerable to attacks, but of all possible leaders (even, I think, McKenna) he's the best politician of the bunch. The man knows how to run a campaign and how to harass the government in the House of Commons. I think he'd probably do better than Iggy would in this scenario (and definitely better than Dion IOTL), but more than anything else he'd likely cause NDP voters (who, as I remember polls showing, generally tended to like Rae) to shift their support to the Liberals.
 
Nope, in my opinion Iggy is the obvious alternative to Dion.

I remember reading in When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada by Peter C. Newman that after the thitd-ballot, before Rae was officially eliminated, Ignatieff gave very serious thought to dropping out and endorsing Rae, given their past friendship and the view that, between the two of them, only Rae could beat Dion.

As strange of an idea as it is, it'd be a pretty interesting scenario.
 
Harper was eager to run against Rae, as Wells recounts in The Longer I'm PM and we saw from that mini-barrage when he was interim leader 3 years ago. Tory research told them that Ontarians had extremely vivid memories of Rae's premiership. With Rae instead of Dion Harper doesn't do an environmental feint either, or at least less than OTL.
 
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