This is the seventh in The Globe's series of profiles of all the Liberal leadership candidates.
OTTAWA – Martha Hall Findlay is sitting in a faded pink wing chair in the cave-like basement of an Ottawa pub. While sipping a pint of honey-brown beer, she answers questions from a dozen Liberals sitting around her in a circle.
It is a sunny September Thursday and she has travelled a few hundred kilometres in a red motorhome -- the flagship of her Big Red Bus campaign -- to press flesh and draw Liberals, one by one, to her underdog campaign to become the next party leader.
"What's the expression? There's lots of room in the Big Red Bus," she says with a smile.
Liberal leadership candidate Martha Hall Findlay on her campaign bus during a stop in Ottawa this month. (Dave Chan/The Globe And Mail)
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The group is mostly University of Ottawa students, including some admirers. John Gravel, a 26-year-old second-year law student, compliments Ms. Hall Findlay before the event starts, but later in an interview underscores the challenges facing her, voicing a common perception.
"Mathematically, I'm not quite sure about her chances, but I think that if she could get in as a member of Parliament, she'll make a very strong contribution to the party," he says.
Martha Hall Findlay has never held elected office. She has little national profile and has jokingly referred to herself as "Martha Who Who?" She has been a member of the Liberal Party for less than three years.
Yet she is running to be Liberal leader and perhaps prime minister.
Among veteran partisans, the 47-year-old Toronto telecommunications lawyer and businesswoman is respected as a bright, personable and refreshing addition to the crowded race, but is seen as having no chance.
Ms. Hall Findlay insists she is in the race to win.
"I'm doing this because I know I can contribute," she says in an interview in her RV before a stop in Kingston.
Her campaign strategy is simple: Meet as many Liberals as possible. For a leadership bid lacking in star power and deep coffers -- she has just six full-time workers on the payroll -- personal connections are the only way to impress potential delegates.
The divorced mother of three appears most often in front of small groups.
"In that environment, the ability to engage individuals much more personally became sort of the way that we created enthusiasm," says Quito Maggi, her campaign manager.
Ms. Hall Findlay's campaign weapon of choice is a red Damon DayBreak motorhome, with its beige upholstery and oak trim, emblazoned with her name, giant photo and the slogan "It's time."
While on the road, the slim brunette and her campaign aides stay in campgrounds and trailer parks.Ms. Hall Findlay's political career started in March, 2004, when the Liberal candidate in the riding of Newmarket-Aurora, north of Toronto, bowed out because of disgust with the sponsorship scandal.
An election was looming and Ms. Hall Findlay stepped into the breach, despite conventional wisdom that high-profile Conservative candidate Belinda Stronach had already sewn up the constituency.
Ms. Hall Findlay lost, but to almost everyone's surprise the margin was just 689 votes. She had caught the political bug. After selling her home in Collingwood and moving to Newmarket, she was acclaimed as the Liberal Party's candidate in the spring of 2005.
But that May, Ms. Stronach again thwarted Ms. Hall Findlay's political ambitions by crossing the floor to represent the Liberals in Newmarket-Aurora.
"That takes a lot out of you, you know. It was really hard," she says.
Ms. Hall Findlay sat out the most recent federal election, after party brass offered her a strong Conservative riding, a proposal she found insulting. There was no constituency available in the Toronto area, where she now lives with her partner, telecom executive Randy Reynolds. Instead, she helped other Liberals, including rival Michael Ignatieff.
Ms. Hall Findlay was born in Toronto, the fifth of six children. Her father was a Harvard MBA who ran a laboratory supply company; her mother was a homemaker. Her parents separated when she was 13. Exceedingly bright, she skipped three grades in high school and skied competitively.
Ms. Hall Findlay says two issues propel her political career: health care and the environment.
On health care, she has controversially called for private involvement, but only within a single-tier, publicly funded, universally accessible system.
On the environment, Ms. Hall Findlay, who uses solar panels at her cottage on Georgian Bay, believes a focus on climate change comes at the detriment of "more immediate concerns," including air, land and water pollution. She also urges more investment in public transit.
Ms. Hall Findlay's campaign is trailing on two key fronts: money and delegates. After an initial focus on selling memberships, her team started actively fundraising in mid-July. According to official Liberal Party figures, she had raised $36,835 as of July 31, far below fundraising front-runner Bob Rae, who had then hauled in $405,028. (Her team says the current total is about $107,000.)
It is also clear that she will have little support on the first ballot, when elected delegates from each riding are required to vote for their membership's leadership choice.
But on the second and later ballots, when delegates can vote for the candidates of their choosing, her team believes support will soar.
"We know that Martha is everybody's second choice. We know that instinctually. Also, that's what we hear on the ground from everybody," Mr. Maggi says.
In this long campaign, Ms. Hall Findlay often looks to the example of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. As Mr. McGuinty told her earlier in this campaign, he was considered a long-shot when he defied expectations and became Liberal Leader on the fifth ballot in 1996.
"He said, 'Oh Martha, never underestimate the value of being everybody's second choice.' To which I responded, 'No, I don't underestimate that and I hope it's okay, Dalton, but I use you as an example all the time!' "
At a glance
Name: Martha Hall Findlay
Born: Aug. 17, 1959
Personal: Divorced from Doug Findlay. Lives with partner Randy Reynolds. Three children: Katie, 25; Everett, 23 and Patrick, 21.
Political history: Ran unsuccessfully for Parliament in 2004 in Newmarket-Aurora. Planned to run again, but Belinda Stronach crossed the floor and took over the riding for the Liberals. Did not run in the 2006 election.
Quote: Though a fiscal conservative, she believes governments must act to protect the environment, even though measures will be expensive.
"We have to be able to make people realize that although some of these answers are going to be very costly, the cost of not solving some of these problems will in the long term be far greater."
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