And then there was the bewilderment, the helplessness, the awful lurch in the pit of the stomach when he and his party went into a free fall in September. By the end of the month, his Quebec lieutenant, Denis Coderre, had quit his post over a nomination dispute in Outremont, taking a parting shot at the “Toronto advisers who know nothing about the social and political realities of Quebec.” By late October, his poll numbers were down more than ten points to 25 percent, Dion territory, and there was talk of a Harper majority. The press, smelling blood, turned on the wounded hero and moved in for the kill.
Predictably, there arose screams of anger and panic from party members, demanding that the gods be appeased with a sacrificial offering. Just as Alf Apps had called for the head of Jim Coutts, now the knives were out for Apps, Brock, and Davey by those who resented — and wanted — their influence.
“It always happens when you have an interesting patch of water,” Ignatieff told the Globe and Mail, “that people say, ‘Let’s throw some crew to the sharks, that’ll make the boat go better.’ If my staff doesn’t perform up to expectations, I won’t hesitate to make changes. But [long pause] in my view, we’re doing fine.”
Three weeks later, on October 27, he threw Ian Davey overboard. Like Horatio Hornblower roused from a dream by a cry that his ship was cruising toward the rocks, he finally did something really smart: he persuaded Peter Donolo to be his new chief of staff.
On the surface, Donolo seemed more of the same, a pollster and public relations guy from Toronto. In fact, he was a breath of fresh air. Originally from Montreal, of Italian heritage, bilingual and free spirited, he knew the party and the players intimately, was highly regarded by almost everyone in Canada’s political class and the media, and brought years of experience in the Opposition leader’s office and the PMO as Chrétien’s director of communications. It helped, too, that he had an impish sense of humour and actually liked other people. Most useful of all, Donolo was an insider who understood grassroots politics. He wouldn’t have written off Paul Martin Jr. so early in the game and cast his lot with Jean Chrétien unless he knew that the important votes weren’t on Parliament Hill or Bay Street. Nor was he naive enough to believe that the spin matters more than the content.
Of course, there was plenty of work to be done to polish Ignatieff’s delivery of the message in time for the election campaign. Before that, however, Donolo needed to sit down with his leader, take him all the way back to the beginning, and tell him in no uncertain terms that the tough question isn’t “How?” The tough question is “Why, Michael, why?”
