CDN Liberals Drafted a Harvard Prof and Fell off Cliff; Now the Memoir

choi

Jordan Michael Smith, The Public Intellectual Who Wanted to Be a Politician; What works at Harvard won't always fly with voters--just ask Michael Ignatieff. Boston Globe, Nov 17, 2013.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas ... NFHpJjAK/story.html

Excerpt in the window of print: 'I can't believe I was so naive. I should have asked a lot more questions before agreeing to come home.'

Quote:

"Ignatieff delivered the Liberals to their lowest electoral fortune in the party’s 144-year-old history.

“'I set out to become prime minister and I failed,' he told me. Indeed, Ignatieff admits in the book that he was a poor politician. He writes of the difficulty he had in keeping his mouth closed, in hewing to the party line, in connecting with average voters.

"But in the end, the choice is up to voters—and, as Ignatieff learned firsthand, the very same virtues that can be an asset in the academy often turn out to be just the opposite in the eyes of the public.

"To others, Ignatieff fell prey to more than just individual problems; he stumbled into the difficulties faced by any intellectuals who venture into electoral politics. 'The things prized in academia—independence of thought, bold ideas, speaking out—are not the things that necessarily make a good politician,' says Joseph Nye, a professor at the Kennedy School. Caution and a willingness to follow party orders are critical in politics, but they go against everything academics have been taught. * * * In the United States, only a handful of scholar-politicians have enjoyed success. Daniel Patrick Moynihan * * * Newt Gingrich * * * has referred to himself as 'the most seriously professorial politician since Woodrow Wilson' [Henry Kissinger was not an elected official; senator Elizabeth Warren (D Mass) won by by 8 percentage points, exactly as I predicted when looking at differential of party affiliation of registered voters, and that is why the defeated Scott Brown is thinking about a re-run, not in Massachusetts but in New Hampshire]

"As a politician, Michael Ignatieff is finished. And he is a humbler man. But as a thinker and a teacher, he believes in his liberal ideals more than ever. Perhaps even more so, since he is now espousing them as one who entered the political ring and, by his own account, suffered a knockout and lived to tell the tale. “I entered politics with a lot of baggage and I paid full freight for it, but it’s better to have paid up than to have lived a defensive life,” he writes in “Fire and Ashes.” “A defensive life is not a life fully lived.”

My comment:
(a) This is a cautious note for you and me who ever contemplate returning to deliver country folks from sufferings. Upon reading the title, I thought party politics (fractions) or elders (playing him like a puppet) was the root of an academic to transform and transcend. The root turns out to be voter disaffection.

(b)
(i) Michael Ignatieff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ignatieff
(1947- ; the elder son of Russian-born Canadian diplomat George Ignatieff, and his Canadian-born wife, Jessie Alison (née Grant); leader of the Liberal Party of Canada 2008-2011; Member of the Canadian Parliamentfor Etobicoke–Lakeshore [a federal electoral district in Ontario] 2006-2011; Harvard Professor 2000-2005, again 2013- ; section 5 Political career)

Likely unable to pronounce his surname, some Canadians call him Iggy.
(ii)
(A) The above Wiki page says, "His historical memoir, The Russian Album, traces his family's life in Russia and their troubles and subsequent emigration as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution." That is one memoir:
Michael Ignatieff, The Russian Album. Picador (an imprint of Macmillan), 2001.
http://us.macmillan.com/therussianalbum/MichaelIgnatieff
("Ignatieff chronicles five generations of his Russian family, beginning in 1815. Drawing on family diaries, on the contemplation of intriguing photographs in an old family album, and on stories passed down from father to son, he comes to terms with the meaning of his family's memories and histories. Focusing on his grandparents, Count Paul Ignatieff and Princess Natasha Mestchersky, he recreates their lives before, during, and after the Russian Revolution")

* picador
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picador
(B) His real memoir:
Michael Ignatieff, Fire and Ashes; Success and failure in politics.Random House, Sept 24, 2013.
(Iii) Ignatyev
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatyev
(or Ignatiev or Ignatieff; a Russian surname)
(iv) William Gordon Casselman, Ignatieff; Origin of a surname prominent in Canadian affairs. Bill's Canadian Word of the Day includes the fascinating origin of famous Canadian surnames, 2005
http://www.billcasselman.com/wha ... _five_ignatieff.htm
("Ignatieff is a Russian patronymic surname whose literal meaning is ‘son of or descendant of Ignatius.’ [Not] the first Jesuit, Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556)
[but] a different, earlier Ignatius, Saint Ignatius of Antioch)

(c)
(i) Parliament of Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Canada
(Only those who sit in the House of Commons are called members of parliament (MPs); the term is never applied to senators [who are appointed by governor general on the advice of the Prime Minister of Canada], even though the Senate is a part of parliament; "the maximum five-year term of the legislature")
(A) Glossary of Parliamentary Terms for Intermediate Students. Parliament of Canada, undated.
http://www.parl.gc.ca/About/Parl ... x.asp?Language=E#05

Quote:

"dissolution[:]  The bringing to an end of a Parliament, either at the conclusion of its five-year term or by proclamation of the Governor General. It is followed by a general election.

"government[:]  An important feature of our system is that the Cabinet is responsible to Parliament. If the Government loses a major vote in the House, the Cabinet resigns. At that point the Governor General may accept the Prime Minister's advice to dissolve Parliament and call an election, or the Governor General may ask the Leader of the Official Opposition to form a new Government.
(B) House of Commons of Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_Canada
(There are 308 members as of 2011, but that will rise to 338 for the next election)

Quote: "MPs may hold office until Parliament is dissolved and serve for constitutionally limited terms of up to five years after an election. Historically however, terms have ended before their expiry and the sitting government has typically dissolved parliament within four years of an election according to a long-standing convention. Notwithstanding this, an [2007] Act of Parliament now limits each term to four years.
(C) Parliament of Canada has no term limit.
(ii) Canadian federal election, 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_2011
(The Conservative Party [Stephen Harper as Conservative leader (2004- ) and Prime Minister (2006- )] remained in power, increasing their seat count from a minority [143 seats in House of Commons] to a majority government [166 seats]; view table: Liberals' seats dropped from 77 (26.26%) to 34)
(iii) Canadian federal election, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_2008
(iv) Canadian federal election, 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_2006
(v) Paul Martin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Martin
(On Nov 14, 2003 "Martin succeeded Jean Chrétien as leader of the Liberal Party and became prime minister on Dec 12, 2003. After the 2004 election, his Liberal Party retained power, though it was reduced to a minority government. Forced by a confidence vote, the 2006 general election produced a minority government for the opposition Conservative Party, making Stephen Harper prime minister. Martin stepped down as parliamentary leader after the election [ans was] succeeded by Stephane Dion" ["Dion resigned as Liberal leader after the party's defeat in the 2008 general election, but remained in Parliament and was re-elected in his riding [Canadian for electoral district] in the 2011 election"]; for Sponsorship Scandal, refer to Auditor General Sheila Fraser's Feb 9, 2004 report in this Wiki page)

(d) “I’d always admired the intellectuals who had made the transition into politics—Mario Vargas Llosa in Peru, Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic, Carlos Fuentes in Mexico—but I knew that many of them had failed, and in any event, I wasn’t exactly in their league.”
(i) Mario Vargas Llosa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Vargas_Llosa
(1936- ; ran for the presidency of Peru in 1990 and lost; acquired Spanish citizenship in 1993, though he still holds Peruvian nationality; recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literatureborn in Peru; currently a visiting Professor at Princeton University)
(ii) Carlos Fuentes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Fuentes
(1928-2012; a Mexican writer)

(e) National Post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Post
(English-language; based in Toronto; owned by Postmedia Network Inc and is published Mondays through Saturdays; founded in 1998)

(f) Conservatives' ads said "the only thing he [Ignatieff] missed about Canada was Algonquin Park, and calling the Canadian flag a 'passing imitation of a beer label.' Ignatieff instantly sank in the polls, and he never recovered. The ads were effective because they contained a large amount of truth. Ignatieff instantly sank in the polls, and he never recovered. The ads were effective because they contained a large amount of truth.”
(i) Algonquin Park
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algonquin_Provincial_Park
(in Toronto; Established in 1893, it is the oldest provincial park in Canada; Its size, combined with its proximity to the major urban centres of Toronto and Ottawa, makes Algonquin one of the most popular provincial parks in the province and the country)
(ii) Algonquin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algonquin_people
("Algonqui" has been suggested to derive from the Maliseet word elakómkwik: "they are our relatives/allies;" Most Algonquins live in Quebec)
(iii) Peter Sypnowich, On Guard for Thee. Feb 4, 2011 (blog).
http://peter-sypnowich.com/articles/article638.html
(iv) Molson Canadian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molson_Canadian

(g) "In the May 2, 2011, elections, the Liberals suffered an unprecedented defeat, with 'seats falling like ninepins,' as Ignatieff puts it."

bowling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling
(section 6 Types of pin: "Nine-pin bowling" is "a bowling game played primarily in Europe," per Wiki page for that name)