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bruce anderson

The next six months will likely bury or ignite Michael Ignatieff's political career. He needs to change three things to avoid the worse of those fates.

First, he must abandon the "light under a bushel" strategy, whereby he shares as little as possible about the ideas he loves for the future of his country. This is a time for big thinking, he is a big thinker, and he is ignoring his competitive advantage. He has the luxury of competing with an incrementalist in a time when there is a latent fear of being too incremental. He has the unique opportunity to run against a fiscal conservative who has accumulated the largest single deficit in Canadian history.

He should stake out his ground, make his pitch, take the sterile partisan debate to a new level. Get himself out of the weeds of political strategy and tactics. Never feel a need to utter the word lieutenant again. The idea that the role of opposition parties is to oppose and nothing more is a lousy refuge that doesn't look or sound right to voters, and fails miserably in a time of perpetual minority government. Voters logically expect a good deal more than knee-jerk rejections of government policy. Platforms might seem scary, but lack of platform should be starting to feel a little worrisome about now too.

Second, he must address his communications shortcomings. If the people closest to him are allowing him to believe that his skills in this area are right up to scratch, he needs to ask them to be more candid, or he needs to ask other people. His style is stiff; he comes off looking over-handled, rarely happy and generally under-inspiring. He is becoming better at staying on message track, but is losing the battle to make his message track sound like something he is excited about, or something we should be excited about. He must come across as looser, more confident, more optimistic, more compelling, more human.

Third, one of the odd dysfunctions in the consulting business is that those who become good at consulting end up managing consulting businesses, something that requires different talents and motivation. In politics, how often have we seen people who are great at many things but have no background managing anything become party leaders and struggle because they either micro-manage, resist hiring a peer-type strong manager, or decide management isn't all that important and let the chips fall as they may. Mr. Ignatieff needs to strive for that balance of fresh thinking talent, smart and strong personal loyalists, and top drawer management of people and process. The last six months or so have seen too many misfires to ignore the role that strong management discipline must play.

Finally, Adam Radwanski succinctly described the other day how Ottawa gets way ahead of itself, obsessing about and exaggerating the effect of political events that barely register in the rest of the country. No matter what he hears in the corridors of the Parliamentary precinct, the problems Mr. Ignatieff faces are entirely reparable, and the slide in public opinion so far is modest and soft. There is no reason to overreact, which is not license to under-react. The next six months are his story to write, and a happy ending is certainly within reach.

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