Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's new chief of staff Peter Donolo has in the last six months as a pollster said the Liberals should try to poach votes from the NDP to win, but the leader's perceived lack of left-of-centre credentials could throw a wrench in this plan, says one leading pollster.
"The challenge for Michael Ignatieff is his career path, especially in the United States," said pollster Nik Nanos, referring to the Liberal leader's past support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which he has since recanted. "For many New Democrats some of his musings on foreign policy are counter to what they believe, in regards to his support of American foreign policy on a number of key issues related to the war on terror."
There is a direct correlation between NDP and Liberal Party support in that when support for the NDP goes up, Liberal support goes down, and visa versa. Strategically, the best way for the Liberals to become more competitive is to position Mr. Ignatieff as the leader of the "non-Harper world," said Mr. Nanos, although he added it would not be an easy task.
"Theoretically it sounds good that the Liberals should try to appeal to the NDP, but the thing is they're going to have to remake Michael Ignatieff in order to be reasonably acceptable to the NDP. That's going to be a significant job," he said.
The Liberals and the Tories were in a dead heat until Mr. Ignatieff announced at the end of the summer that his caucus would vote to defeat the government at the earliest possible opportunity, sending their support into freefall.
An Ekos poll on Sept. 3 had both parties tied at 32.6 per cent, and by mid-October the Tories were in majority territory, at 39.7 per cent, while the Grits' numbers were even worse than the last election, at 25.7 per cent. At the end of last month the Liberal leader fired his chief of staff, Ian Davey, and brought in former Chrétien-era director of communications Peter Donolo, who was working as a pollster at the Strategic Counsel. While Mr. Donolo has been keeping a low profile since joining the leader's team, over the last six months he's done numerous interviews in which he's said repeatedly the key to Liberal electoral success is to push down the NDP's support.
"Polling shows NDP voters have a much higher dislike and distrust of Harper than Liberal voters, so it's important for Ignatieff to get New Democrats to give him a fresh look and think, 'Listen, he's serious about this. If he wants to take Harper down, he's my man,'" he told The Winnipeg Free Press last summer.
In a series of interviews since Mr. Ignatieff's troubles began, Mr. Donolo's advice to the Liberals has been to try and "polarize the electorate" and make the Liberal leader the default for voters who dislike Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.). In the same interview he pointed out that while some of former prime minister Jean Chrétien's success in winning three successive majority governments has been attributed to a divided right, a depressed NDP vote was just as important.
An Ekos poll released last week showed that Liberal Party support had stabilized at 26.8 per cent, the same level as on election day last year, although it was still far lower than the slight lead Mr. Ignatieff had over Mr. Harper when he first took over as leader in December. The NDP were at 16.3 per cent, two points lower than in the last election. The Tories were the same as on election day, with the support of 37.4 per cent of respondents. The Green Party was at 10 per cent, and the Bloc Québécois was at 9.4 per cent support.
Mr. Donolo said in order for the Liberals to win, the NDP needs to be at 10 per cent support or less.
"There's been a lot of focus on the fact the right was divided ... and that's why the Liberals won majorities. There's a bit of truth to that but an equally valid and largely ignored fact is that the Liberals won also because they depressed the NDP vote—7.5 per cent in 1993, 11 per cent in 1997 and 8.5 per cent in 2000. That's a big difference from the NDP polling at 18 or 19 per cent," Mr. Donolo said in one interview. "The Liberals can't win, certainly can't win majority governments and probably have a hard time winning at all, with the NDP up there in those levels."
Mr. Ignatieff's predecessor, Stéphane Dion (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, Que.), was seen to have moved the party to the left, particularly with his Green Shift carbon tax proposal, which was widely praised by environmentalists but viciously attacked by the Conservatives and ultimately rejected by voters.
After suffering one of their worst defeats ever in the last federal election, many in the party hoped Mr. Ignatieff would tack right to try and reclaim middle-of-the-road voters who switched to the Conservatives. There has also been a skittishness to put forward policy ideas out of fear the well-funded Tories will discredit them in the minds of the public, as happened with the Green Shift. But Liberal insiders now say the party should be focusing on areas of traditional strength, such as social justice, and national unity, that will not only attract soft NDP voters, but also win back some of the party's support among women and young people.
"One of the things that the Liberal Party needs to understand, and I think most rank and file Liberals understand, is that we have now been out of power for three-and-a-half years and we have to train our guns on good Canadian public policy, on childcare, on infrastructure, on housing, and homelessness, and poverty, and that's what you're going to find Peter build on," said former New Brunswick Liberal MP Paul Zed, who was narrowly defeated in the last election and served as Mr. Ignatieff's interim chief of staff prior to Mr. Davey taking over.
Liberal MP Rob Oliphant (Don Valley West, Ont.) said he hopes Mr. Donolo will be able to get the party's message out more effectively.
"Obviously we're not doing well in the public, I read the polls. We've not been able to remind Canadians that we're a Liberal country. We've not been able to remind people who Stephen Harper is so there's a problem," he said.
Mr. Oliphant said the party should be doing more to talk about their economic management credentials, like slaying the deficit during the 1990s and ushering in years of surpluses that have only recently disappeared under Mr. Harper's government.
A Liberal source who did not want to be identified said part of the enthusiasm for Mr. Donolo among the caucus and party insiders is a lingering nostalgia for the good old days.
"Liberals seem to think, rightly or wrongly, that those mid-90s years of the Chrétien government were the glory days. If things start to go sideways they go back to that. That was part of this."
In addition to expounding on the need to chip away at NDP support, before leaving his job as a pollster Mr. Donolo issued a series of sharp critiques of the Liberal Party's performance. He said the summer, where Mr. Ignatieff was seen to have disappeared from the spotlight, and his failure to chime in on the U.S. healthcare reform debate were both wasted opportunities. He supported the Liberal leader's unpopular decision to declare he was withdrawing support from the government, however, and has said repeatedly he needs to take more risks, including releasing policy proposals.
The Liberals need to talk more about issues that have broad appeal among left-of-centre Canadians, such as healthcare, and belief in a strong federal government, as well as giving voters a better sense of their policy ideas, said Mr. Nanos.
"Think of it as the dance of the seven policy veils; he has to take off a veil related to his vision, he doesn't have to complete the show, but he has to give something to Canadians," he said.
It is widely expected Mr. Donolo will shakeup the OLO. In addition to Mr. Davey, director of communications Jill Fairbrother, who is Mr. Davey's partner, is expected to be replaced. Other key members of the team include deputy chief of staff Sachin Aggarwal, principal secretary Dan Brock, director of policy Kevin Chan, Liberal Research Bureau chief Kevin Bosch, senior communications adviser Leslie Church, and Parliamentary affairs adviser Trevor Harrison. Additionally, Chrétien-era campaign strategist Warren Kinsella has recently joined the team.
Mr. Donolo was in Ottawa last week where he dropped by the OLO's Queen Street office and was introduced to staff.
hmacleod@hilltimes.com
The Hill Times