[LINK] "Michael Ignatieff: Arrogant Bastard"

[rfmcdonald]

For whatever it's worth, I'm in complete agreement with Andrew Steele's blogged position at The Globe and Mail about the Conservatives' new attack ads aimed against Liberal party leader Michael Ignatieff, an intellectual and long-time Canadian expatriate.

I'm a subscriber to the Will Ferguson theory of Bastards and Boneheads.

It states that Canadians elect leaders who are bastards, not boneheads.

Ferguson writes: "Bastards succeed. They are ruthless. They are active. Their cause may be noble or it may be amoral, but the Bastard is always the active principle. Boneheads fail, often by stumbling over their own feet. They are reactive. Inept. Indignant. They are usually truly amazed by their failures."

Trudeau versus Clark. Mulroney versus Turner. Chrétien versusu Day. Harper versus Dion. Most of our recent national elections were competitions between arrogant bastards and stumbling boneheads, and the bastards always win.

Conceding the "arrogant bastard" high ground is a major error. In effect, the Conservative Party is paying millions of dollars to brand Michael Ignatieff the very thing Canadians vote for: arrogant bastards.

The best attack ads make their victim an object of ridicule. This one attempts that with a cheeky attitude, but builds up its target so much before it tears him down that the net result can be a grudging respect for Ignatieff.

Taught at Harvard? Isn't that a good thing?

On the cover of GQ? That's kind of cool, actually.

The thing he missed most about Canada was Algonquin Park? How Canadian.

A final point is the reliance of the campaign on the tall poppy syndrome.

As I've written before, the jury is most definitely out on the existence of a tall poppy syndrome when it comes to national politics.

Most of our Prime Ministers have been men of letters. Many have spent time outside the country, although none to the degree of Ignatieff.

The nation has not been a bastion of populism, electing hockey players and lumberjacks to the top job. Rather, it almost exclusively elects university professors, lawyers, mandarin bureaucrats and long-time senior Cabinet ministers to the top job.

The choice of brand by the Conservatives is an odd one.

Better choices would have been out of touch, or making it up on the fly, or shifty.

But arrogant is something that Canadians say they don't like, and then vote into office again and again.