Is the Media Turning On Iffy?

For the last week now the Liberal leader has been on a bus tour that he and his party hopes improves their numbers and possibly take them back to 24 Sussex.  Well how's it been workin' so far? The media hasn't been actually that kind to him this week for one thing.  Their reporting has been relatively critical. They have been reporting mostly the negatives. I must add he hasn't actually helped himself out here. It started even before Iffy boarded the Liberal Express. Last weekend at the Calgary Stampede, he channeled Hugo Chavez when he made a comment about "smelling sulfur" when referring to the PM.
Tuesday shortly after the bus was on the road, it broke down and "Harper Diesel" came to the rescue.That's what the story was for the day.

Yesterday he was on the defensive when Jim Travers from the Star reported that there was and exit strategy for Iffy should he lose the next election.  Iffy denied the report and dissed Travers at the same time. 

“Let’s put it this way. I was surprised,” he said. “Jim Travers is a good journalist, but he’s starting to write fiction here in his declining years. I really don’t know where he got it from.”

Oooh, that most likely didn't endear him to Travers and the Star.  When you're a politician you don't diss a journalist they can turn on you and become vicious.
Michael Den Tandt describes Iffy as vague and timid.  Calls his vision  nostalgic and could come back to hurt him.
Susan Riley is equally critical about Iffy. She is known to be more critical of Conservatives not Liberals.

The problem is not that Canadians don't know the Liberal leader, all these months later. The problem is that they know him too well.

and this zinger,

Trouble is, Canadians don't see a regular guy when they see Ignatieff, no matter what he wears. They see a man trying to be someone he isn't.

Michael Harris sums it up quite nicely.

When the guys who buy ink by the barrel turn against you, the bus ride is usually one way.

Ain't that the truth! There's still a lot of touring for Iffy left to do.  Will he be able to turn it around?  Who knows.  It's still early in his tour but he surely has an uphill battle to win hearts and minds of the public especially if he doesn't have the media on his side.  Without the liberal media on their side, Liberals have a really hard time.

Is Kelly McParland Right? Maybe Ignatieff just isn’t that smart

Kelly McParland stated this just a couple of days ago that Michael Ignatieff :

 Maybe Ignatieff just isn’t that smart.  It’s hard to figure this guy. He’s made mistake after mistake after mistake. He signs the coalition pact, insists he’s on side, then repudiates the whole thing later. He stokes a phony election threat, insists he means it despite all common sense, then retreats in embarrassment when it falls flat. He raises issue after issue as a line in the sand, then does nothing when the Tories step over the line and kick sand in his face to boot. His own caucus ignores him, his supposed pal Bob Rae embarrasses him, he fires his advisers to get better advice, and then makes the same dumb mistakes under the new advisers.
He doesn’t seem to learn. He spends a deeply uncomfortable week or two insisting he’s not interested in a coalition of opposition parties, then uses a trip to Britain to confer with the junior member of Britain’s coalition party. Great optics? Um…no. He knows he has to soften his image as a pointy-headed academic, so he does it by touring Canadian campuses and holding a “thinkers conference” in Montreal. Why not just move back to Harvard and run the party from there?

Well Mr. McParland just may be right.  We have this today from John Ibbitson.  Seems like Ignatieff has trouble with knowing about the different bills that are out there. 

 Kingston voters school Ignatieff on legislation that matters
KINGSTON, ONT. – Do you know what Bill C-6 is? Or Bill C-474? Don’t worry, it would seem Michael Ignatieff doesn’t either. 

As leader of the official opposition he should have a clue about these bills. Does he not read them? Is he not at least briefed on them?  Good grief! 
PM Harper would have known what these bills were about, each clause, each paragraph and able to explain them in detail.  So would NDP Leader Jack Layton.   Maybe Iffy should spend more time at work then maybe he'd have somewhat of a clue.  It just shows he's not ready for prime time.

Iffy Should Not Count on Alberta Provincial Cousins

Oooh, our Alberta provincial Liberal leader, David Swann is not exactly enamoured by his federal cousins.

“It helps us to define ourselves as quite separate from the federal Liberals, which in Alberta is not a bad thing,” Swann said Tuesday after issuing a statement criticizing the federal Liberals. “We are standing up for Alberta, and in this case, we are not in agreement with our federal Liberal party.”

Ouch! Who can blame the provincial Libs from wanting to separate themselves from their federal cousins?  They have a hard time the way it is to make any headway, nevermind associating themselves with the federal Libs.  We Albertans have not forgotten the  NEP that the federal Liberals imposed on us that was disastrous for businesses and individuals in the eighties.  We suffered through some tough times as a result. You got that  plus all that has occurred afterward within the federal Liberal party, (adscam, internal feuds, leader problems etc.)   you can see why they don't want to be linked to the federal party. Who would want to be associated with all that?
Smart move for Mr. Swann  for not wanting to be "kissin' cousins"  It would be poison if they were.

So Iffy, don't count on  your cousins in Alberta to help you out any time soon.  Just continue on with your Express bus tour and connect with the common people.

Iffy's Common Touch

So the leader of the Liberal party is on his bus tour across the county.  He wants to connect and "build a level of trust" among Canadians.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is embarking on a two-month tour to connect and "build a level of trust" with Canadians across the country.

Uh huh, good luck with that one because maybe you need to beware of Iffy's common touch.

As Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff embarks on his cross-Canada tour, vowing to shake every hand in the country, we offer this stock tip.
Buy Johnson & Johnson.
It's the maker of Purell.
In a last-ditch effort to reinvent himself yet again -- having failed at portraying himself as Philosopher King Redux, or as an aristocratic Tsarist whose lineage demands a return to rule, or through his supposedly incomparable intellectual prowess, Ignatieff now wants Canadians to believe he has the common touch.
So, in his words, he's going to shake every hand in every Tim Hortons in the country, and kiss every baby he can find.
Break out the hand sanitizer and hide your children.
Snake oil would be an easier sell for the Liberal Party than Ignatieff trying on yet another political disguise, especially one where he attempts to shift his image to one that mirrors the hoi polloi.
He's an elitist, pure and simple.

Wow, ouch!   Don't think he's going to connect with regular folk anytime soon. Yeah I know, the toughest job in politics is leader of the official opposition but  he is so out of place and out of touch.  He just looks so uncomfortable to me.  The more he's out and about, the more he goofs up with his gaffes and the more the public is turned off.  If he doesn't turn this thing around toot sweet, he's toast after the next election.

The Wildrose Stomp!

Ready for the Wildrose Stomp? Found this cute little video on youtube.  Enjoy!