From Power to Pitiful: An autopsy of the Saskatchewan Liberals – Regina Leader-Post

Karwacki was able to fund the party, in part, out of his own pocket. Funding a third party political movement is difficult, unless youre well heeled, he said.

He was able to rely on a network of personal contacts to build his organization. He couldnt match the money flowing into NDP and Saskatchewan Party coffers, but his efforts brought in $601,510 for the Liberals in 2007.

We were forced as a political party, the Liberal Party, to be fairly leader-centric through my tenure, and thats a dangerous way to build an organization because when the leader leaves, the organization also leaves, he said.

The money left too. The Liberals reported just $80,297 in contributions in the year of the 2011 election.

Given those challenges, its little surprise the party tried to focus its energies. It nominated just nine candidates. Bater targeted his own seat in the Battlefords.

Karwacki views that individual riding strategy as a mistake.

Running a limited number of candidates is just a loser, he said. You need to be in the full game.

People just say, well, youre not really going to form a government so why should I vote for you?

But he knows the odds were stacked against his successors, whatever they did.

The folks that took over after me did the best they could, Karwacki said. I would say that it shows how fragile political parties are.

Lamoureux learned those lessons when he took over in 2013. He ran a full slate of candidates, partly in the hopes that it would win him a place in the 2016 leaders debate.

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From Power to Pitiful: An autopsy of the Saskatchewan Liberals - Regina Leader-Post