Stéphane Dion wanted so badly to hear from friends that he should stay on as Liberal leader.
In a Sunday night telephone call, just hours before he was to face the national media, Mr. Dion told one friend that Liberals and others advised he could fight another election.
He was sad. It was an emotional call and he was clinging to the fact that there were those, such as neighbours, who were telling him to stay put.
“I think he would hold on to anything,” says the friend, who cautioned him to examine how much support he had.
He said he had “some.”
The Liberal Leader was clearly struggling, saying he wanted to “do the right thing.” He noted, too, he felt Canadians “were scared of him.”
Just as he came late to his decision to step aside, Mr. Dion came late to the realization he was going down to defeat last Tuesday. In fact, it wasn't until his chief of staff, Johanne Senecal, broke the news that night – before the results came pouring in – that he really heard that he was about to lose, says a senior Liberal. Until that point, he still believed he had a shot.
Monday he announced he would remain as leader until his successor was chosen. And he came back to the scary-leader theme in his news conference, blaming the Harper Conservatives for his loss, saying the attack ads the Tories ran after he was elected leader cemented in the minds of Canadians an image of him as weak.
Meanwhile, Mr. Dion's lack of awareness about what was happening in the campaign is in contrast to that of Paul Martin in 2006, who had his advisers, Scott Reid, Scott Feschuk and Robert Asselin, write a concession speech on the morning of election day. He knew he was going to lose, had absorbed all that, and announced in his speech that evening he was stepping aside.
It took Mr. Dion nearly a week to get to that point.
“Usually you are preparing yourself mentally for winning and losing and it appears as though he was unprepared, which did not allow him then the time to figure out what he was going to do,” says a long-time Liberal adviser who worked for Mr. Dion before and during the election campaign.
And so the week of seclusion and soul-searching – which was spent first in Ottawa at his official residence, Stornoway, and then at his home in Montreal over the weekend.
For most of the week, insiders say, Ms. Senecal stayed close, guarding his access and privacy. He talked to a few people.
“When you develop a bunker mentality like that … the only thing you hear is your own head. It's not always the most accurate,” says a veteran Liberal MP. “You need feedback. You need to express yourself. You need to bounce ideas [off someone].”
In fact, it wasn't until the weekend that he called some of his defeated candidates; it's not clear if he has even spoken to his closest leadership rivals, deputy leader Michael Ignatieff or Toronto Centre MP Bob Rae.
Even one of his national campaign co-chairs, someone who one would think would be part of the decision-making process, was calling another senior strategist to see if he knew what was going on.
On Friday, a wider coterie of advisers, came over to Stornoway. He then spent the weekend in Montreal with his family.
“It all seems pretty lonely to me. I just think it's lonely,” says the senior Liberal adviser. “I just don't think he talks to a lot of people. He's got no infrastructure. That has always been his Achilles heel.”
Unlike other leaders, such as Jean Chrétien or Brian Mulroney, Mr. Dion doesn't seem to have a wide circle of advisers outside of his close circle.
“He very much takes his own counsel,” says the strategist.
Others describe him as a “lone wolf.” One former Dion adviser says that a leader needs to be gathering his own intelligence.
On Monday, the Liberal Leader said he has accepted the result and is looking forward. He is not dwelling on the past, he said.
