Candidate Profiles: Michael Ignatieff

Well, we come to the end of the profile series now with the man in first overall in delegate numbers, Michael Ignatieff.

Michael Ignatieff

Oh, what to make of MI? He's certainly the media darling of the campaign, getting most of the attention. He's been the frontrunner for about a year now. And lots of people hate him.

And I mean they hate him.

Almost more than Volpe.

Now, I can definitely see why people wouldn't like him and wouldn't be fond of him being the leader (his right-wing stances on foreign affairs, his numerous numerous blunders), but the hate-on people get gets a bit disturbing at times. As for me, I don't see why people can hate him so much. Are there others I want to win more than him? Yes, hence my support for GK. But would he be the downfall of the Liberal party, the male Kim Campbell (as a conservative friend of mine opined)? I don't think he'd do that bad. Even if he has really contrary opinions, he is quite eloquent in explaining them.

As I said to people last May at the LPC(O) convention after hearing him speak, I thought that he was a very talented man, and with a bit more political experience, maybe some time in cabinet, he'd be a great person to have as leader. I don't mind his stances on foreign policy, since he explains it well (albeit a bit lengthily), and I don't think we'd lose too many voters from that. And it would definitely be interesting to have a real intellectual as a PM and not simply a politician, to see how they would do.

But to actually be PM, he'd have to win. He has the tendency to say what comes to mind, then go on for 5-10 minutes about why he thinks that way. That isn't so bad when doing it in a closed environment in little groups, but in debates, that doesn't work. In a debate or election campaign, the conservatives will take anything he said and plaster it around. He can't go to every household in the country to give his opinion, so it will sting. With him as leader, we'd face most of our campaign time fixing his mistakes, and not enough time getting policy or being able to attack the opponents lack of doing anything in parliament.

So that is in brief why I don't support him, and why he is not my first choice for leader. Now, I was asked recently if it came down to Rae vs. Iggy, who would I vote for. Honestly, I'm not sure. As I said, I'm not as opposed to him as most people (at least as much as most people on the GK campaign, which I would wager has the highest "non-Iggy" amount of delegates), so I won't need to drink away my sorrows if he wins. [I'm sure I will anyways, but that's another matter entirely].

Convention Prediction:

Well, he's simply gonna have to prove that he's not a terrible leader. As I said before, had he run gaffe-free since the DSM, he'd make a lot more friends. This recent Nation question will be interesting to see how it plays out. He may get a boost from Quebec delegates who like his rigid, early stance for recognizing Quebec, but then again he may not be able to attract as many non-Quebecois voters this way. It's very hard to see a way that we could not be on the last ballot, so it's gonna be very interesting if people really hate him that much, or if all the predictions from last April are correct and Iggy will win.

Future:

Even with his rumours of not running depending on who won, for his reputation he won't be able to back out. I really don't think he'll be overly interested in sitting in opposition, but he's got to stick it out for at least a few years. He's too old to be able to run for leadership next time, even if he would probably be better once he had a bit more experience. If he doesn't win, it would be interesting what cabinet spot to give him. I think he'd be a very interesting foreign affairs minister, but it would be a very controversial appointment.