My contribution to our Canwest file today:
OTTAWA – When Prime Minister Stephen Harper eventually tangles with Michael Ignatieff in a general election, Harper could be facing his toughest Liberal opponent yet.
Partisans on both sides say the next Liberal leader matches up well against many of Harper's strengths and has the potential to bring his party back to the vote-rich centre of Canadian politics.
“That's his basic philosophy,” said one of Ignatieff's campaign organizers, “and that's where the party is signalling that it wants to go.”
Liberals hope – and Conservatives fear – that Ignatieff can present himself as a transformational character, someone whose very personality reinvigorates the country's political life, in the same way that Pierre Trudeau or Barack Obama were agents of change.
Darrell Bricker, chief executive of pollster Ipsos Reid, said there's no evidence Ignatieff can be that kind of a game-changer right out of the gate.
“The evidence for that doesn't exist,” Bricker said. “It's not like there's any Iggy-mania out there – yet.”
Bricker said Ignatieff's ascension to the leadership gives the Liberals some new opportunities, but it doesn't automatically put them over the top.
But before any potential might be realized, Ignatieff must face his first major strategic decision and it's one that could test Liberal caucus unity: Should he continue with the Liberal-NDP coalition, a union that polls show is deeply unpopular with Canadians, and replace Harper as prime minister? Former Liberal leadership candidate Bob Rae and many Liberals say the coalition should continue. Ignatieff thinks it might be prudent to wait to see what is in Harper's budget. When Ignatieff advanced that view in the closed-door caucus meeting last week, his colleagues shouted him down.
Ignatieff did not speak to reporters Tuesday but is expected to do so Wednesday.
The Conservatives, of course, have no intention of allowing Ignatieff to develop any kind of halo and are developing strategies to do what they did to outgoing Liberal Leader Stephane Dion – quickly marginalize him.
“He's going to wear that coalition in the next election whether he wants to or not,” said a Conservative source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
And, should Ignatieff survive the test of his young leadership that will come with the coalition decision, his political opponents will be waiting with more ammunition. They will try to point out the patrician, aristocratic aspects of his character – he is the grandson of a Russian count who served in the court of Czar Nicholas II – while comparing that to the more workaday background of Harper, the son of an an accountant who grew up in a middle-class Toronto neighbourhood.
Conservatives will also remind Canadians that it was Ignatieff, not Dion, who favoured a carbon tax in the 2006 leadership race, a policy proposal that would make it difficult for Ignatieff to win votes in Western Canada.
The Tories launched an ad blitz immediately after Dion won the leadership in late 2006 and, as Dion himself conceded last month, that campaign successfully created a negative impression of Dion from which he was never able to recover.
Conservatives have not yet decided if they will launch a formal ad campaign to attack Ignatieff, but they certainly have the money to do so. The prospect or fear of a coalition government has fired up the Conservative base so much so that the party raised $600,000 on one day last week alone.
The Ignatieff campaign organizer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Liberals will not let any such Conservative ad blitz go unchallenged.
“We won't make that mistake again,” the organizer said. “It's now a whole new ball game. While an awful lot of decisions lie ahead, he will be standing in principled opposition to this government.”
Ignatieff also faces some of the trickiest tasks to confront any leader who has ever taken over a federal party in Canada. Even when Jean Charest ended up leading a caucus of two MPs as leader of the federal Progressive Conservatives in 1993, his party didn't find itself in the dire financial straits that the Liberals face and Charest still enjoyed significant support in all regions of the country.
The Liberals are in debt and the party has struggled to find some successful fundraising techniques. In addition, many of his key caucus members are still paying off debts from the leadership race that Dion won in 2006. Dion, himself, is also still in debt.
In some parts of the country – notably Alberta and Saskatchewan – Ignatieff's party is also nearly non-existent.
Perhaps most important, the policy cupboard is all but bare. As a party, the Liberal grassroots have not had a chance to debate and formulate policies at a convention since 2005 when Paul Martin was prime minister. Coincidentally, it was Ignatieff, then a Harvard professor, who gave the conference keynote address, sketching out what he saw as the three pillars of Canadian liberalism: unity, sovereignty and justice.
As he works to meet those challenges, there is one thing Ignatieff can count on that his two predecessors could not: He will lead a relatively united, if humbled, party. The bitter infighting between Paul Martin and Jean Chretien loyalists poisoned Martin's prime ministership. When Dion took over, he had next to no caucus support.
Ignatieff, by contrast, has the overwhelming support of his caucus and the internecine warfare that Martin had to deal with should be non-existent.
Indeed, Rae, Ignatieff's only serious rival for the leadership, said Tuesday, “As far as I'm concerned, the Liberal party is not divided. We're not divided on leadership. We're not divided on substance. We all feel good. We all like each other. We're going to be the most boring party to cover from now on. Just one big happy and successful family.”
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Do you by any chance know who was the last leader of a federal party that wasn't a career politician?
Here's the thing. The Liberals accused the Conservatives of being the partyof big business, and with Chretien's change to the political financing laws, the opposite has proven to be true. Perhaps this was Chretien's last punch before he officially left politics?
Still though, with their actions since that day, nothing (or at most very little) has changed with the way the LPC has gone about their fundraising. And more importantly, their actions and decisions have largely shown that the Elite of the LPC remains uninterested in investing the grassroots of their party with the necessary authority and responsibility that inspires financial support from that self-same group.
Even the recent decisions regarding the selection/appointment of the new Leader of the party has further disenfranchised the Liberal grassroots. And while it was perhaps politically necessary/convenient in the minds of the party elite, the rank-and-file members of the party are fed-up with once again being told to go back to the kiddie-table and behave.
I have experienced first-hand, long-time Liberals who are tearing up their memberships and seeking Conservative ones. As a Conservative myself, I've been happy to oblige and welcome them, and their voice, to my party of choice.
Stephen Harper said quite clearly at our most recent Policy Convention in Winnipeg. Red is the color of Canada, and “Blue is the new Red!”
For the Liberals, Pierre Trudeau probably qualifies as a non-career politician. 'Course he did have a couple of years in Pearson's cabinet before getting the top job. Pearson, too, was a career diplomat before doing a couple of years in St. Laurent's cabinet ..
For the Tories, Mulroney is the classic non-career politician. Though he'd been heavily involved in politics, he won the PC leadership without ever having been elected to anything.
For the NDP — I'd say Audrey McLaughlin was the last non-career politician to lead that party. She won a byelection in 1987, two years before becoming leader. Before that she'd been a social worker and consultant.