Modeling Journey

We heard the pollsters pontificating that the Liberals are losing their edge with women, youth and the cities.

Now along comes this journalist in the Winnipeg Sun to advise Ignatieff to take the Liberal Party hard to the right, and focus on some 70 small town and rural ridings:

"Liberal partisans are all too comfortable, it seems to me, in assuming that Canadians will inevitably re-embrace the "natural governing party" because, well, it's just so cozy and nice to be a Liberal.

It's as though they think they're Tim Hortons, or better yet the Toronto Maple Leafs. They keep losing but the fans buy tickets regardless.

DON'T BE SAFE

Ignatieff has an avenue to power but it isn't the conventional or safe one, or the one he's being urged to take, in my view. Here's why: Expectations are changing. Doing things the old way because it's the old way is not good enough. Nobody cares about your brand. They want to know who you are and what you will do.

Quebec is a lost land for the Conservatives and the Bloc is tired. So Ignatieff stands to make important gains there. He'll keep the Maritimes. He'll do OK in the big cities. This is not a mystery.

He's urbane, educated and a good speaker. His competition on the left is weak. Layton has nothing new to offer. May's star rose sharply last time but part of that was novelty.

The battleground, in other words, is not the cities and the left. It's the country and the centre-right.

There are 70 ridings, of 308, that are mainly rural and small-town. Nobody in Ottawa, save the Conservatives sporadically, seems to know these ridings exist. Why?
…

Rather than brood at his cottage, Ignatieff should get into the countryside and the small towns and listen to the people who form the bedrock of those 70 swing ridings. Then he should craft some policies that reflect their needs."

Poor Michael.

His head must be spinning with all these contrary advices coming his way!