34 a single important piece of civil rights improbable capture of the NDP lead- legislation, we remember his “Ask ership to planning his funeral only not...” inauguration eloquence. We nine years later, will make some New will always celebrate King’s magnifi- Democrats squirm. He also conveys cent dream, and not his sagging for- a respect for the professionalism and tunes at the time of his passing. discipline of the Harper team’s ap- proach to political street fighting, imilarly, ’s majes- nesting several delightful anecdotes Stic dying message to the Canadi- in his tale about secret exchanges be- an people and the courage of his final tween he and a series of Harper opera- tives on campaign craft. days have already caused memories of his early failures to fade. Lavigne de- The inevitable temptation for politi- scribes in painful detail the role that cal journalists and the punditocracy he, Anne McGrath, Kathleen Monk is to declare, post-facto, every politi- and Brian Topp played in those days. cal fate, every election result, as pre- That exceptional and powerful team dictable, even inevitable. That they of advisers and loyalists that Jack had survive such silly claims despite hav- drawn to him supported ing argued something completely and their leader as they chose an in- different only weeks before is the terim leader, polished his final mes- product of what my journalist father sage into a powerful rhetorical legacy, —longtime Toronto Star reporter Val and produced his elegant and uplift- Sears—describes as “the secret of jour- ing funeral. nalistic and political success: short Partisans of other political tribes may memories.” complain that Lavigne is too parti It was not inevitable that Jack Layton pris to offer useful insights into one would become the leader of the NDP; of Canada’s most tragic political sto- he was an outsider held in consider- Framed and ries—leader cut down only weeks after able contempt by many important his greatest political success. Lavigne party elders. Nor was it inevitable that Forsaken: is especially eloquent on the pain of he would succeed in rebuilding the those months in the spring and sum- party that had sunk to single digits in mer of 2011 among those who had the polls. Minority parties that slide Michael been with Layton on his quest to re- that far are literally one election from build social democracy in Canada. extinction, viz. Progressives, Social Ignatieff’s Many Liberals will be unhappy with Credit, the Saskatchewan Liberal Party. his characterization of their role in Take on Life the collapse of the Martin govern- Not only was it not inevitable, it is ment in November 2005. Others will still astonishing that Layton was able quibble about the rights and wrongs wipe the Bloc Québécois from the po- and Death of the failed 2008 parliamentary coup litical map in one fell swoop, to seize and coalition campaign. the Official Opposition and propel in Politics the NDP from a distant fourth party It is the final third of the to government-in-waiting in less than book, his account of Layton’s 10 years. triumphant 2011 campaign Lavigne does not yet have the craft of and its tragic aftermath, great political journalists. But he does Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure that makes this a compelling share their keen eye for the hinge in Politics. Toronto: Random House moments in politics, those rare occa- Canada, 2013. must-read. Lavigne has an sions when luck and strategy combine advantage in that every to generate a political wave, and the Review by Patrick Gossage reader knows how unfair, mastery and guts required to success- almost Shakespearean was fully ride it to victory. He does future Layton’s end. political activists, and all Canadian uring the early days of Michael political junkies, great service in de- D Ignatieff’s putative run to be scribing with passion and in clinical leader of the Liberal Party in 2006 I detail how the Layton team turned was summoned by two of the three avigne makes no pretense of neu- the improbable into the “inevitable” “men in black” who had journeyed to L trality, but his harsh judgments Orange Wave. Cambridge to persuade him to enter of the tactical and strategic failures of Contributing Writer Robin V. Sears was Canadian politics. They were Ian Dav- several key chapters in that fascinat- national director of the NDP during the ey, a handsome young filmmaker and ing decade, from planning Layton’s Broadbent years. [email protected] advertising guy, the son of the famous

Policy 35 ister, his deep admiration for Trudeau working in his 1968 leadership cam- paign—this background and the al- most genetic belief that good govern- ment could do great things fueled his ambition. Ignatieff succumbed to the blandishments of the “men in black”, despite their warnings about “the great [Liberal] franchise reaching the end of the road”. He saw it as a prodi- gal son’s “homecoming”; positioning that never sold. In re-living Ignatieff’s campaign to win a seat in Etobicoke in the January 2006 election, we get the impression that he was beginning to think he was a populist. Common vignettes of can- vassing are, like much else in the book, summarized in the most exaggerated prose: his campaign, he claims, “broke down the barriers of race, ethnicity and class that kept us separate.” Michael Ignatieff campaigning with Liberal candidates in in 2011. He never made the transformation from public intellectual to politician. He seemed to lack a sense of the country, Ignatieff over-intellectualizes simple which played to the Conservative attack ad that he was “Just Visiting”. Montreal Gazette photo political concepts. Having made the glaringly obvious discovery of Cana- Liberal “Rainmaker”, Keith Davey, Canadians. “Framed” and “denied da’s immense division and diversity, and Alf Apps, a veteran Liberal who standing,” as he argues, by persistent he writes that in the 2006 leadership would become president of the party. negative advertising attacks (“Michael campaign, “I talked about the ‘spine’ They were upset that I wasn’t being Ignatieff—Just Visiting”), and hit by of citizenship that ought to tie us to- “fair” to their candidate in weekly ap- the unexpected orange wave that the gether through all our differences.” pearances on Don Newman’s CBC-TV cane-wielding Jack Layton spread over Hardly a rallying cry like Trudeau’s show Politics. , he was tragically thwarted “just society”. But he stuck to this un- from what he felt was his calling to be Over drinks in the plush library bar of appealing trope. Later, learning the prime minister. the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, they ropes as an MP, he gives a long lesson compared their candidate to Pierre in how Parliament works, bemoaning Trudeau, and allowed as he would I ridiculed the Trudeau its lack of real debate. revive the party and beat Stephen comparison, pointing e is embarrassingly candid about Harper. I had, rightly, as it turned out, learning what anyone who has been bemoaning his lack of political out the long years of H Trudeau’s involvement ever been elected to public office experience and his extended absence knows—that you can’t be candid or from Canada. I ridiculed the Trudeau in the transformation of spontaneous with journalists; that you comparison, pointing out the long Quebec society, and his have to look people directly in the eye years of Trudeau’s involvement in tireless work as a civil when you talk to them. Seriously. He the transformation of Quebec society, rights lawyer. Ignatieff had recounts what he felt was a winning and his tireless work as a civil rights speech at the convention with his rep- lawyer. Ignatieff had no such previ- no such previous political etition of “tous ensemble”—a tepid ous political involvement. Trudeau involvement. Trudeau was a rallying cry in either official language was a committed, engaged public in- committed, engaged public that made up for in meaninglessness tellectual. Ignatieff was a public intel- intellectual. Ignatieff was a what it lacked in boldness. lectual. They were not impressed, so convinced were they he could learn public intellectual. This qualifies for the all-time list of in- grassroots politics and ultimately con- effective political oratory, along with nect with the electorate. his 2011 election campaign slogan “rise up”!, which would follow a lec- In Ignatieff’s brief tome on his life and The book starts with his sense of mis- ture on Harper’s undemocratic ways, death in politics, aptly named Fire and sion, in his oft-told tale of a long line or a protracted list of his platform’s Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics, of ancestral commitment to public ser- promises to do just about everything we are treated to a ponderous and vice in Russia, then in Canada. Pages for everyone. “For a moment,” he heavily intellectualized desiderata on of “to the manor born” and the fam- writes. “We thought we had caught those years, and discover that he also ily’s public leadership, his admission, a wave”. Later, he admits that all the truly believed he could connect with at 18, that he wanted to be prime min- noise and rapture of carefully stacked

November/December 2013 36 campaign rallies were no more than Peter Donolo, Jean Chrétien’s effec- “talking to ourselves…” A rare mo- tive press secretary and Iggy’s second ment of simple candour in this self- chief of staff, was lounging disconso- serving book. Given the state of the lately outside on the sidewalk of the party and his inability to focus the strip mall. “I don’t understand,” he campaign, defeat was inevitable. said sadly. “We did everything right.” The problem with the campaign and Packing up at Stornaway, Ignatieff the book is that from the time the comforts himself with a long Who’s men in black persuaded this Oxford Who of famous losers, (including Machievelli and Edmund Burke), just and Harvard intellectual to come as he makes sure we know he comes back and play politician, hubris took from a long line of famous winners at over, and he actually believed he was the beginning of the book. doing everything right for Canada— in a “noblesse oblige” kind of way. He does catalogue characteristics of That fatally skewed perspective took winning politicians—including adapt- him abruptly back to teaching, a pro- ability and cunning, qualities his own fession he clearly should never have fortuitous life experience had denied left. him. Late in the game, he finally real- ized that politics is war, but he failed Contributing Writer Patrick Gossage to hit Harper where it hurt. While the is the founder and chairman of Conservative ad artillery trained on Ig- Media Profile, a Toronto-based natieff’s critical weakness—“He didn’t communications consulting firm. He is come back for you”, he failed to nail the author of the 1987 best seller, Close Review by Geoff Norquay what swing voters did not like about to the Charisma, about his years as Harper. He never took the gloves off. press secretary to Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Calling Harper undemocratic flew [email protected] ost political parties in the over the heads of the average voter. M western world have embraced all the tools of modern advertising Late in the game, he finally and marketing. They expend signifi- realized that politics is war, Required cant resources in building a brand but he failed to hit Harper around their leader and party, and they rigorously devise and market where it hurt. While the Reading for policies to micro-target segments of Conservative ad artillery the population. They aggressively trained on Ignatieff’s critical the Political invite the comparison of brands weakness—“He didn’t come through what has become known as “negative advertising.” In Canada, back for you”, he failed to Class the result is that our “demographic nail what swing voters did culture has become enmeshed with not like about Harper. Susan Delacourt consumer culture—as you shop and eat, so shall you vote.” That’s the central thesis of Susan The lamb was bleeding, but didn’t Delacourt’s latest book Shopping for know it. Where Pierre Trudeau had Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and been able to connect with voters be- We Choose Them. And a very impor- cause of, not despite, his intellectual tant book it is. Not only should it be abilities, Ignatieff had magnified the required reading for political junkies, distance of 30 years away with a tin but also for those who simply want political ear and a manifest discomfort to understand how politics works in with retail politics, even as a means to Canada in the 21st century, and what an end. Where Trudeau had a visceral, is played out every day in both ques- instinctive sense of Canada in all its tion period and in the media. beautiful and confounding complica- tions, Ignatieff conveyed opinions as For Delacourt, the starting point is the product of pondering from afar, the rise of universal consumerism which, under the circumstances, is all that began in the immediate post- Shopping for Votes: How Politicians they could have been. war period. As advertisers learned Choose Us and How We Choose how to communicate effectively with I attended his last campaign rally Them. Toronto: Douglas and consumers, it was inevitable that the in a large restaurant in North York. McIntyre, 2013. understanding and skills they devel-

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