He's not The Boss. Michael Ignatieff plays on his inner Obama.

Try as he might, though, the Liberal leader can't get the "Rise Up" refrain from Springsteen to reverberate like, "Yes, We Can!"

At a Bramton rally last night, he began the chant, encouraging the crowd to join in and finally got a half-hearted reply.

Rule for campaign slogans: Don't wait until you're halfway through the camapign to start chanting.

Lesson learned: Don't wait until halfway through your campaign to introduce your anthem.

Comments

[MarkAlfred]

First my disclaimer: I'm a New Democrat, so my comment carries that bias.

Now, I feel that Ignatieff's biggest error was allowing the Conservatives to dictate the course of the campaign on two themes: that being Ignatieff being an elite intellectual, and the idea of coalitions. By doing this, he ended up contradicting himself.

First, he campaigned on the importance of education, while simultaneously trying to downplay his own education (IE, the whole hot-dog cross-country tour, and the Springsteen thingy you mentioned). So, he bought into the Conservative line that his education was a disadvantage to be downplayed, while simultaneously trying to prop the idea of the importance of education. Stupid, really, for someone who is as allegedly smart as Ignatieff is. He should have ran ads listing his educational credentials, rather than the Obama-clone ads of caring for his mother. A lot of people care for their mothers -- doesn't mean they should be prime minister. In fact, I met a lot of people who were quite unaware of Ignatieff's educational credentials, who frequently stated, "we need someone smart like Stephen Harper rather than that Liberal guy".

The other thing was the coalition business. If he really was feeling that Harper was anti-democratic and a threat to Canada being a decent egalitarian society, then he would do everything in his power to be rid of Harper. However, when asked if in the case of a minority, which was expected, what he would do, he stated he would not overtake Harper by working with others in the House via a coalition. So, being able to work with others in the House became a liability, rather than an asset. Again, stupid of Ignatieff.

I suspect that the reality is that he really didn't disagree that much with Harper's positions (if he did he would have formed a coalition with the NDP after the prorogation in 2009 and taken over) . Frankly, it's good that we now have two clear choices (NDP and Conservatives), rather than the fuzzy unclear choice of the Liberals.