It was one week ago that I met Michael Ignatieff. I'd received a phone call the evening before, one of those mass phonings with a 'personal' invitation by Michael to attend a rally to show the "strong Liberal pride" Ottawa has long held. I was curious, so I went, along with two of my daughters.
In the convention hall of the Delta City Centre, people streamed in. The place hummed with the energy of people of all types and ages, young, old, hip, not, children on parents' shoulders, photographers politely pushing their way through, people with placards and people with balloon batons, a great deal of red and white. The Liberal candidates for the local ridings were announced to fanfare, and finally the leader arrived.
From where we stood, we could occasionally catch a glimpse of his face, but mostly we just listened. A little anecdote about Harper leaving the Governor-General's that morning, dismissing the contempt ruling as "just a vote in Parliament," a campaign slogan from Bob Dylan's "'You've gotta serve somebody,'" and a rhetorical question, "Who does he think we are?" that prompted an audience shout-out of "Americans!" to cheers and applause.
Pretty standard rally-type stuff, decently brief, an encouraging tone from a leader who hasn't stirred up much these past three years, and we exited the hall just ahead of the media scramble. Lining up against the wall to watch the procession out, suddenly Michael Ignatieff was there in front of us, hand out, eye to eye, saying, "Thank you for coming." We hadn't expected that, but there it was, a few seconds of direct human contact, changing everything. "Nice hat," he said to my daughter, smiling.
Instead of a remote and distant presence, here was a real human being who seemed warm and sincere, and surprisingly down to earth. Does he mean everything he says? Can he pull it off in a fight against Harper? I still don't know the answers, but I feel a whole lot better about him.
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