The actors are ready, the Kabuki is about to begin

Autumn, and an old Liberal’s heart turns to thoughts of infighting. The Liberal Party of Canada’s Ontario wing invited candidates for the party’s leadership to a weekend board meeting in Toronto. There are three such fellows: Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, Dominic LeBlanc. They agreed to meet the party brass. Then Rae realized there would be no reporters at the event. He decided he couldn’t attend. “It sends an awful signal to have a debate that is closed to media,” he said in a news release.

Ignatieff’s people said rules are rules. This was always going to be a private meeting, they said. Changing the rules at the last minute would send an awful signal.

LeBlanc said he agreed with Rae: closed meeting? Awful signal. But he couldn’t boycott the meeting. What an awful signal that would send! Mostly, though, LeBlanc could only mourn the Rae-Ignatieff feud. You know what a Rae-Ignatieff feud is? It’s a signal is what it is. What kind of signal? Awful.

Thus the three candidates for the leadership of the Party Formerly Known As Naturally Governing settle into their parts in a theatre as ancient and rigidly defined as kabuki. Each has a role assigned by circumstance. Because none can change circumstance, each will play his role to the hilt.

Ignatieff plays the front-runner. He reassures. He denies he is the front-runner. He is accompanied by mighty organizers who confer with him urgently and, in various other ways, conjure impressions of inevitability.

The front-runner will win if there are no surprises. So he hates surprises. He will not say a cross word about anyone, but he cannot help mistrusting the other candidates because they bring surprise. This is the conflict that drives his character: he loves all, but he must not permit them to act. So, loving all, he will crush them.

Bob Rae is the challenger. His central characteristic is that he does not understand why he has to be the challenger. What the hell? He thought he had this thing. In 2006 he surrounded himself with the shiniest veterans of previous regimes. He spoke without scripts. In debates he rose from his chair while everyone else stayed sitting. He’s his own guy. He can do this. It was clear to him. He waited for it to become clear to everyone.

When Stéphane Dion won nobody was in a worse mood than Rae. Hadn’t you people been listening? Finally he decided he would just have to wait longer for his competence to triumph.

Now the moment arrives. The challenger awakes, and is amazed to discover that not everyone has been waiting. Ignatieff was gathering support while Rae gathered strength, and support is better. The challenger will lose if there is no surprise. So he must create surprises.

That’s why he decided the private meeting over the weekend had to be a public debate. It’s why he showed up outside the meeting, not to fold his tent and debate anyway, but to explain to reporters why he couldn’t take part in such a sham. It’s why he has proposed 13 public debates before Liberals choose delegates to the conventions. The challenger is prepared to talk forever if, in so doing, he can goad the front-runner into opening his own mouth. Perhaps a surprise will fall out. At this point that is the challenger’s best hope.