Angry in the Great White North

It seems to be that Michael Ignatieff is destined for great things for politics.  A great speaker with charm and strength in equal measure.

Or so the media would have us believe.  And by the media, I guess I mean the Ottawa-based media, and to a lesser extent, the media in Canada's major cities.

But outside the radius of Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, a different story is being told.

It is of a stodgy university professor.  Charm and strength?  How about boring and patronizing in equal measures instead?

When Michael Ignatieff visited Niagara Falls, he failed to impress reporter Corey Larocque, who works for the Niagara Falls Review.  Larocque acknowledges what is being written about Michael Ignatieff:

On Canada's political landscape, the interim leader of the Liberal party is hot right now. He's everywhere - making headlines, on TV, on the radio. The 61-year-old academic is poised to become the full-fledged leader of the federal Liberal party at a convention next week in Vancouver. It's a job that could catapult him right into 24 Sussex Dr. after the next election.

Somehow, Ignatieff has convinced the national media he's more charismatic and dynamic than [Stephane] Dion, who was forced out after his Green Shift carbon-tax platform cost the Liberals last year's election.

So just how exciting is Michael Ignatieff?  Not very.  Indeed, he's rather annoying:

But Ignatieff's speech last week to the Niagara Falls Chamber of Commerce certainly would have led you to believe otherwise. It was disjointed and occasionally rambling. It's the kind of boilerplate speech politicians make in their sleep. Just last week alone, he had made similar stop in Chatham, Brantford, Cambridge, London and Niagara.

He mentioned Niagara icewine at least three times, once to say how much he likes it and twice to say it's the kind of product a region needs to produce to have a solid economy.

But every time it came up, it was in the same way the lead singer of touring rock band shouts out, "Are you ready to rock... Niagara Falls (Toronto, Vancouver... or wherever the heck we are tonight)?"

He also talked about how much he and his wife like the Niagara Parks Commission's Butterfly Conservatory. Enough. We get it. You know Niagara. You like Niagara.

Maybe Larocque is a cynic, but Michael Ignatieff failed to get him excited about Niagara's future prospects:

"Times are tough here, I know. But you've got the right pots on the stove. You've got to have a lot of pots on the stove to succeed in the 21st century economy," he said.

How much do you want to bet most other communities also have the right pots on their stoves?

And then there is more patronizing from the Harvard professor:

There was a little name-dropping when, twice, he reminded the 130 members in the audience that he had met Barack Obama, that time in February.

Does Michael Ignatieff think we're all rubes who'll be impressed because he met Barack Obama?  Maybe Michael Ignatieff can impress us with policies instead:

Ignatieff covered a lot of ground, without really saying anything substantial. So maybe he is poised for a great political career, after all.

Or maybe not.  Maybe in these difficult times, Canadians are going to want to hear less about cooking metaphors (if there is a Liberal-NDP coalition in the future, does that mean the Liberal pots go from the stove and onto the NDP's kitchen table?), and more about why Michael Ignatieff wants to raise our taxes the minute we're out of the recession and we're able to think about using our money for ourselves.

Or is that too substantial?