… it’s Tuesday night, and you are in the basement of a pizza restaurant, sitting right next to a professor and former Leader of the Opposition of Canada, talking about the challenges of running for political office.
Michael Ignatieff gave up a stellar academic career in Harvard in 2006 to return to his native Canada and run for political office. He immediately ran up against the usual accusations of carpetbaggery, which remained a constant taunt throughout his political career. He went through some intense highs and lows – winning his first parliamentary campaign; immediately being thrust into a contest for his party’s leadership; losing that contest, but ending up as deputy leader; later becoming party leader, and leading the Liberals into their worst ever parliamentary showing, losing his own seat in the process.
Having retired from politics after the loss in 2011, he wrote Fire and Ashes, an introspective and honest memoir of his experiences in politics. The Guardian did a review, and judged it thus: “for a clear-eyed, sharply observed, mordant but ultimately hopeful account of contemporary politics this memoir is hard to beat. After his defeat, a friend tries to comfort him by telling him that at least he’ll get a book out of it. Ignatieff reacts with understandable fury. He didn’t go into politics and through all that followed just to write a book. Still, it’s some book.”
Needless to say, I highly recommend Ignatieff’s book, for anyone thinking of running for political office someday.
Ignatieff took the time to take questions from a crowd of about 20 of us, all Harvard graduate students at the Kennedy School, all of us idealistic in our own way. We discussed the trials and travails of retail politics; the burden of the Harvard stamp on your forehead; the role of the media; the modern-day culture of celebrity politics that would have killed modern-day Lincolns and Attlees; the challenge of money in politics. Most importantly, he impressed upon us the importance of knowing why you are getting yourself into the game, being ready and prepared for the shitstorm that will greet you upon arrival, and why politics is an expression of human nobility.
It is always impressive to see someone who has been chewed up and spat out of politics like Ignatieff, still express great optimism for the prospects of smart, bright young men and women to make their way into elective office, despite the current prevailing mood amongst high-minded millennials who are eschewing traditional politics in favour of stints in NGOs and nonprofits. As Ignatieff kept reminding us, the beauty of democracy is in the one-on-one: looking voters in the eye and representing their hopes and dreams in the best way you can.
Am I convinced, though? I’m not sure. I’m currently firmly in the camp that believes change and leadership can take place in many different arena. As Ronald Heifetz has eloquently put it, authority confers great resources to bear on adaptive challenges, but also brings with it a number of constraints. Running for elective office requires signing up to a certain way of life, a mode of existence. It is not a lifestyle which many would relish.
The reward, though, as Ignatieff rightly puts it, are very personal: power, and maybe more beguiling for many, posterity. Having your name in the history books, on that new school in your neighborhood. The enticements can be very narcissistic. It is up to you to make clear your motivations, and hopefully choose a path that truly accords with your own nature and character.
