Iggy On the March

The Liberal leader needs a message, and the Conservatives need a new web developer.

Sun Media’s Monte Solberg remonstrates Michael Ignatieff for embarking on a cross-country tour last week without developing any clear policies first. “If the Liberals expect people to throw off their Snuggies and venture out into the snow and cold to hear Iggy,” Solberg writes, “he’d better have something deeply significant to say. He’ll certainly need to find something more compelling than what’s on the Liberal website,” which delivers “vague” references to growing the economy. Fair enough, and admittedly a visit to the Conservative Party’s website does offer some more specific policies. Unfortunately, they are specifically aimed at bashing Stéphane Dion’s 2008 election platform. With an election looming, the Conservatives amazingly haven’t updated their policy page in two years. If it ain’t broke …

Covering one of Ignatieff’s tour stops, the Globe and Mail’s Gordon Gibson is pleasantly surprised by the alteration the Liberal leader has undergone in the past year. “The distant professor has been overtaken by the reassuring politician,” he writes. According to Gibson, Ignatieff does have something significant to say, and come election time will emphasize the strength of his cabinet team (one of the few areas the Liberals outmatch the Tories), the Conservative’s foreign policy missteps, their less-than-stellar accountability record, and Harper’s plans to spend billions on fighter jets, prisons, and corporate tax cuts, all while hammering home the idea that a vote for the NDP is wasted vote. Gibson wagers that if Ignatieff delivers his message while firing on all cylinders, the next election could be close. Gibson may be overstating Ignatieff’s chances, but given the beating Iggy routinely receives in the press, he’d be hard pressed not to exceed expectations come election time.

The Montreal Gazette’s L. Ian MacDonald crunches some numbers and finds that Ignatieff’s ballot question, “Are you better off than you were five years ago?” likely won’t elicit the resounding “no” the Grits are hoping will induce Canadians to vote Liberal. According to MacDonald’s figures, the answer is closer to something along the lines of “no, but we’re doing better than damn near every other country hit by the recession.” That won’t win Iggy many votes.