Guy Giorno has taken something of a thrashing in the past 24 hours from people who aren't usually on the list of the PMO's biggest critics, or at least weren't until recently.
The common perception that he's directly or indirectly responsible for Kevin Lynch's exit as clerk of the privy council, and that this is a bad thing, probably doesn't affect Giorno's short-term job security; Stephen Harper has a tendency to try to avoid turfing ministers until any controversy surrounding them has blown over, and one assumes he'd adopt the same strategy with his chief of staff. But it does highlight some serious problems within the PMO, and increase the prospect that those problems will blow up in the government's face down the road.
Even before he lost this week's popularity contest with Lynch, Giorno was a bit of a whipping boy for Ottawa's press gallery and chattering classes. In some measure, that may have to do with his background in provincial politics, which Ottawa tends to view as one notch up from serving on a condo board. But there's also a quite legitimate sense that Giorno was oversold when Harper brought him in, and has proven in way over his head since then.
Giorno is often billed as a "driving force" behind the Common Sense Revolution. That's true, in a sense, but he was more a foot soldier than he was a general.
His time as Mike Harris' chief of staff came in the former premier's utterly forgettable second term, when Harris had visibly lost interest in his job and the government was already careening toward the defeat that Ernie Eves eventually wore. He was around, too, for Harris' earlier years in office - when, for better or worse, the Conservatives moved with impressive focus toward implementing their agenda - but he wasn't in charge. "My role is advisory, not managerial," he told The Globe back in 1997.
That's probably what he was best suited to. Nobody who's worked with him will question his intelligence, nor his grasp of issues. If you want the premier - or the prime minister - well briefed, he's your guy (provided you don't mind that briefing being from a very conservative perspective). He knows his files.
Running an office, though, is mostly about letting other people handle the details of the files, while you keep your eye on the big picture. It's also about managing relationships. And there's not much evidence to suggest Giorno is all that good at either.
Burning intensity, which is a big asset when you're a little further down the food chain, can be a hindrance if you don't know how to channel it. So can slavish devotion to your boss. By all accounts, Giorno is not especially good at taking a step back - at seeing the forest for the trees.
All of this, of course, says as much about Harper as it does about Giorno, just as all questionable hiring decisions do. Prime ministers have an unfortunate tendency to surround themselves with people who reinforce their worst instincts - Paul Martin being only the most recent and obvious other example. In Ian Brodie, Harper had - to some extent, at least - a chief of staff who would mitigate his own tendency to overreach in search of partisan advantage. Giorno, by contrast, seems to encourage him only to reach even further.
That's not done any favours for Harper's re-election prospects, not least because it led to the strategically disastrous fiscal update from which the government has not fully recovered (and which led the Liberals to rapidly get their house in order). But more troubling , if you don't have a partisan investment, is what the consequences might be before that election.
Speaking to senior Conservatives, John Ivison gets the sense that Lynch's departure was prompted by clashes with Giorno over his ability to stimulus funding out the door quick enough. This is not very different from the impression one gets talking to people close to senior civil servants, which is worrying.
There's often a natural friction between politicians and civil servants, and there are times when the latter do hold things up too long. But this is one instance when, in the absence of due diligence, there's a danger (if not an inevitability) that political imperatives will trump policy objectives, with potentially unpleasant results.
Obviously, the government needs to get money flowing quickly in order for it to get any credit for helping the country out of recession. But the type of infrastructure spending in question usually takes years to actually bear results. As it tries to accelerate that process, there's a risk of billions of dollars being misspent.
Lynch appears to have been tough enough to try to ensure that the right checks and balances are in place. If so, that's something that the PMO should have valued, because it could help avoid spending scandals down the road. Instead, there are signs that Giorno may have viewed Lynch as some sort of saboteur, or at least a feckless bureaucrat getting in his way.
Now, it may be that Wayne Wouters will be just as willing to stand up to the political side. But if he's not, then Louis Ranger - the deputy minister to John Baird, the minister responsible for the bulk of the stimulus spending - might be left fighting a lonely battle for due process. Given that Baird is likely the most nakedly partisan, take-no-prisoners minister in the current cabinet, that's not a battle Ranger will be likely to win.
In the short term, Giorno would likely consider that a victory; so, too, might his boss. But nobody suggests that Giorno doesn't win battles. It's winning the war that he might not be as good at.