Conservative critics will gleefully say he is finally trying to see first-hand the country he wants to lead but was away from for 30 years.Liberal defenders will say he is letting Canadians get to know him beyond the Conservative-created caricature of an arrogant, detached academic “just visiting” Canada.He is federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who starts the parliamentary summer break with a trip to China next weekend and then an extensive bus tour of Canada.With poll numbers showing him one of the least popular Liberal leaders in Canadian history, the tour could be the last best chance for Ignatieff to connect with ordinary Canadians, make an impression and drive home a message of a vision for Canada before the looming election.It is a chance to reinvent himself as a retail politician with an attractive product to sell.Ignatieff’s first impression for many Canadians, helped by extensive Conservative branding as an elitist, foreign intellectual, was as an aloof academic with dramatic eyebrows. His inclination to declare himself passionate about so many causes led skeptics to wonder if he has any real priorities.This summer, Ignatieff and his handlers will try to sharpen the focus and soften the image, particularly in western and rural Canada that have become largely a Liberal wasteland.The way veteran Saskatchewan Liberal Ralph Goodale sees it, his leader has something to sell when the Liberal bus rolls into rural Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.“I think he has made a real effort to develop good solid proposals for the rural platform,” Goodale said in a late June interview.He points to a promise that a Liberal government would improve farm program design in consultation with farmers, would impose a real moratorium on rural postal closings, expand rural internet and cell phone coverage and provide a tax break for rural volunteer firefighters.“He’s made real progress in demonstrating he is serious about this,” said Goodale, who has won seven elections in Saskatchewan, often as the sole Liberal.“He is very much an open book on this. This is not a closed agenda.”But Goodale also acknowledges that while there has been “some positive response” to the rural proposals, there is not yet a widespread rural appreciation or even knowledge about what the Liberals are proposing.“We’ve got to make a long-term effort to make it clear what is in the platform offer.”So that’s Ignatieff’s job this summer: to meet as many Canadians as possible, demonstrate that he is a serious leader with an alternative vision for the country and try to convince them to give him a second look.Much of it will happen under the radar of national media attention but Liberal planners are hoping local media will help spread the word.On July 4, the Liberal leader tours the Great Wall of China, built to keep invading hordes at bay.Then he returns home to tackle the Great Wall of Rural Canada that in recent decades has successfully kept the Liberal hordes at bay.He’ll be looking for some weak spots.
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