Reaching for the top no easy task

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Michael Ignatieff, speaking to the Canadian Club of Winnipeg Thursday, has been weathering a brutal attack campaign from the Tories as he tries to convince Canadians he is the right person to lead the country. (KEN GIGLIOTTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

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(KEN GIGLIOTTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

No one should envy the job that lies ahead for Michael Ignatieff.

The Liberal leader, in Winnipeg Thursday for a speech, is on a mission to become prime minister. To do that, he must reinvent a Liberal party bereft of policy and personality, build an election machine to rival the Tories' ruthless and efficient campaign death star, and ignite a passion in voters that have given up on partisan politics.

Ignatieff must accomplish these goals while fighting off one of the nastiest attack campaigns every conceived and resisting the temptation to trigger an election before he is ready.

Earlier this month, Tory cabinet minister Vic Toews, Manitoba's senior government MP, distributed a pamphlet in his riding suggesting Ignatieff disparaged Ukrainians in a 1993 book. It has been fairly well-established that the quote used by Toews was taken out of any reasonable context, and that the allegation Ignatieff (who is of Russian descent) abhors Ukrainians is the worst kind of political hyperbole.

And yet, the whole controversy has remarkable staying power. Facing reporters in Winnipeg, Ignatieff was forced to deny Toews' allegation over and over again. He and his people continue to argue the attack campaign says more about Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Tories than it says about the Liberals. The Liberals are right, but they know that being right is a qualified success in this scenario.

The Tories have portrayed Ignatieff as an aloof intellectual who has no business seeking the prime ministership after spending 34 years living abroad. It's a cynical campaign, full of venom and irony.

Harper is, in reality, pretty intellectual himself. He is a life-long academic with several letters after his name and has not had much experience carrying a lunch bucket to work. And yet, a poll in May of this year indicated Canadians see Harper as more of an everyman, while Ignatieff was the elitist. In one poll, respondents actually rated Ignatieff as the least patriotic of all the national political leaders, an opinion that seems directly connected to the Tory allegations.

The question here is whether the ads are working. Last week, an EKOS Research poll showed the Conservatives leading the Liberals for the first time in months. The working theory suggested the Tory surge was the result of blowback from Ignatieff's threat to trigger an election nobody wanted, and the "corrosive effect" the ads have had on Ignatieff's public profile.

This week, however, EKOS had a new poll taken just a week after the previous poll showing the Grits back out in front with the "slimmest of leads." The attack ads have continued, but it's unclear whether this is galvanizing opinion against Ignatieff, or merely feeding the blood lust of decided voters.

In reality, Ignatieff can do little to counteract the Tory attack campaign short of forging a new Liberal party. His Winnipeg speech gave no indication that goal was within his reach.

The speech was brief, punchy and well-delivered but it was also much too vague to win the hearts and minds of undecided voters.

It was full of the standard assortment of pledges of support for motherhood issues (education, health care, child care, economic prosperity) that Canadian voters have been chewing on for more than a decade. It could have been delivered by NDP Premier Gary Doer or federal Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Many observers are concerned about declining voter turnout in Canadian elections. Could the lack of real choice have something to do with that worrisome trend? All mainstream political parties support tax cuts, better infrastructure, more accessible health care and an education system that is the envy of the world.

However, almost no one seems to know how to achieve those worthy goals.

Ignatieff pledged his support to complex issues such as construction of a national electricity grid but offered no details on how he would pay for it. It's hard to find a political leader who doesn't want a national grid but it remains a pipe dream until someone figures out how it will be funded.

This is an era of politics almost completely absent of ideology, where the only notable contrast is between those in power and those that are not.

Those unlucky enough to occupy opposition benches have been caught in a bizarre game of musical chairs; the music has stopped, there are no chairs left and no one is quite sure how to get the music going again.

It is clear Ignatieff represents an upgrade from the previous leader. However, Ignatieff faces the same challenges as his predecessor and has yet to signal he's found the clear path out of the political wilderness.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 3, 2009 A5