Second Part of National Post Profile

Part three of a four-part series.; adawson@nationalpost.com

Draw from Copps camp: Second ballot might become coalition for 'Anyone but Martin'

OTTAWA - The campaign strategy of the John Manley team is to prevent Paul Martin, the front-runner in the race to become Prime Minister, from winning more than 45% on the first ballot of the leadership vote.

The strategy counts on building an "Anybody But Martin" coalition in order to beat him on the second ballot.

Herb Metcalfe, senior partner in the Capital Hill Group lobby firm and chairman of Mr. Manley's unofficial leadership campaign, said early forecasts indicate Mr. Manley will garner enough delegate votes, probably about 30%, to finish second. He expects Sheila Copps, the Heritage Minister, to come in third with about 25% of the votes.

"Paul's got a substantial lead and you'd be crazy not to believe that. We'll definitely come second [on the first ballot vote] and first depends on how well our campaign goes over," Mr. Metcalfe said.

"The trick in all of this is hopefully to have Paul below 45%. If you can keep him below 45% ... you then go to the second ballot."

About 5,000 delegates are expected to attend the November leadership vote in Toronto.

Delegates supporting Ms. Copps, mostly left-leaning Liberals supportive of social issues and minority rights, are unlikely to support Mr. Martin, Mr. Metcalfe says, adding they would be more comfortable moving to Mr. Manley.

"I don't want it to be 'anybody but Paul'. That's not what it's about," he said, adding the movement may well emerge anyway.

Joe Thornley, campaign strategist for Ms. Copps, was taken aback when told of the Manley strategy and said the Heritage Minister has no intention of joining forces with anyone to beat Mr. Martin.

"Sheila is running to win. When we get to the second ballot, I hope that a number of Liberals will be moving toward her," Mr. Thornley said. He added: "We are not thinking about ballot strategies at this stage. We're focused on the next four months, during which time our focus will be on recruitment of new members."

Mr. Metcalfe revealed Mr. Manley's campaign is "close to halfway" in reaching its goal of raising between $3.5-million and $4.5- million. He hopes to file Mr. Manley's nomination papers and pay the first half of the $75,000 entry fee -- which is non-refundable -- by mid-week next week, before Mr. Manley returns from his decision- making Caribbean cruise.

He admits it is risky considering no final decision will have been made by then, but he said he's fairly confident Mr. Manley will enter the race. Besides, he said, he needs all the time he can get to conduct a mass membership drive. Access to bulk membership forms is only possible once a candidate has formally entered the race.

Part three of a four-part series.; Tomorrow: Paul Wells on John Manley's enduring strengths and emerging weaknesses.; adawson@nationalpost.com
The National Post continues its series on John Manley, the Deputy Prime Minister and federal Finance Minister, in the wake of his first budget and the lead-up to his possible bid for the Liberal leadership. Today, Anne Dawson profiles the men and women who make up Mr. Manley's inner circle.

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OTTAWA - Of the burgeoning number of supporters and back-room operatives lining up behind John Manley, few have inspired him more in his political career than a long-time colleague and family friend.

Tom McDougall still remembers the day almost three decades ago that he met the bespectacled young man who had finished first in his law class at the University of Ottawa. Mr. Manley had just completed the most sought-after clerking position in the country -- legal assistant to Chief Justice Bora Laskin, of the Supreme Court of Canada -- and was now angling for a position with the prestigious Ottawa law firm Perley-Robertson Hill & McDougall.

"We hired him almost immediately. To meet him is to be impressed with him," Mr. McDougall, 60, recalls.

The firm was small and tight-knit, and, within a short time, the two lawyers introduced their wives to each other. At the time, both women were pregnant -- Judith Manley with her first child, Rebecca, and Suzanne McDougall with her third, Simon. The Manleys would add two more to their clan and, before long, all six children and their parents were spending ski weekends together -- as they do still, at the McDougall chalet, north of the Ottawa River in Quebec.

Mr. McDougall, however, is quick to dismiss any suggestion he acted as a mentor to Mr. Manley. Within a couple years of being hired, he points out, Mr. Manley was made an equal partner in the firm. But he concedes he encouraged Mr. Manley in every step of his political career, believing his friend uniquely suited to public life.

"He is a completely honest and ethical person," Mr. McDougall says. "If you want a compass to approach an issue and to try to do the right thing ... nobody is more honest and straightforward than John."

It was Mr. McDougall and his wife who hosted Mr. Manley's first fundraiser, in 1988 -- a cocktail party at their New Edinburgh home - - when Mr. Manley ran for the nomination in middle-class Ottawa South. And now it is Mr. McDougall who has the task of fundraising should Mr. Manley run for the Liberal leadership.

But that's where "family" ends, and the inner circle widens. In the past few years, Mr. Manley has assembled a group of volunteers who have been acting under the umbrella of "Friends of John Manley." Spearheading the unofficial campaign is Herb Metcalfe, founder of Capital Hill Group, the largest public-relations and lobby firm in the country.

Another supporter is Doug Kirkpatrick. A long-time Liberal politico with his own consulting firm, Heydon Strategies, and an affiliation with the high-powered Sussex Group, another Ottawa consulting firm, Mr. Kirkpatrick has spent 20 years shuttling back and forth between Queen's Park and Parliament Hill on behalf of successive Liberal regimes, including those of John Turner and David Peterson.

Alfred Apps, a Bay Street corporate lawyer who is organizing in Toronto on Mr. Manley's behalf, met Mr. Manley only 18 months ago. He says he is promoting the 53-year-old leadership aspirant because it is time for a "new generation" of Liberals -- an obvious slight to the 64-year-old front-runner in this race, Paul Martin, the former finance minister.

Also on board are Marie Poulin, a Liberal Senator from Sudbury, and Susan Smith, a public-relations executive with Thornley Fallis, an Ottawa media firm, both slated to do communications for the Manley team.

Noticeably absent from the inner circle, at least for now, are Tony Macerollo, Mr. Manley's executive assistant, who after 14 years of working with him is a close friend, and Jennifer Sloan, Mr. Manley's former director of communications, and one of his fiercest defenders.

The latter left the job that saw her at Mr. Manley's side almost daily for five years, from his meteoric rise from Industry Minister to Deputy Prime Minister, to take up another position with Susan Whelan, Minister of the Canadian International Development Agency. Insiders say she is still involved, but in a minor role, at least for the time being.

To date, only three MPs have publicly declared their support for Mr. Manley: Peter Adams, Bob Wood and Alex Shepherd, all from Ontario. Martin Cauchon, the Justice Minister, and Jane Stewart, the Minister of Human Resources, are hopefuls, but not yet decided. Manley officials say they expect to win the backing of 15 MPs out of the 170-member Liberal caucus; this compared to 115 for Mr. Martin.

There are two common themes shared by the Manley campaign team. The first is they are not supporters of Mr. Martin, the overwhelming favourite. The second is they all believe it is time for a "generational shift" in the Liberal party. But essentially that theme is just an extension of the first: John Manley should be leader because he is not Paul Martin.

Despite Mr. Manley's insistence he is not running against Mr. Martin, his campaign strategy suggests otherwise. It is focused on the 103 Ontario Liberal seats, most of which are already committed to Mr. Martin. Ontario is the battleground, and that explains why the top four men running the Manley campaign are Ontario experts.

Mr. Martin, backed by one of Ottawa's most powerful lobbyist/ consulting firms, the Earnscliffe Strategy Group, has been working on his leadership campaign for more than a decade. In that time, he has put together an impressive national organization that has already crushed both Brian Tobin, the former industry minister, and his successor, Allan Rock, who was considered to have had the best leadership organization after Mr. Martin's.

So why would long-time political veterans take such a long-shot risk on an unlikely giant-killer? One senior Liberal insider, who is not working for any campaign, says it is a clear case of opportunity knocking.

"It's been 12 years since the last federal leadership contest. They don't come along very often, and if you do government business in this town, you have no choice but to be a player in this leadership race," the insider says. "Everybody thinks that Martin is going to win and win big. So it's a great opportunity. If you ever pull it off, if you win, if you ever beat expectations, you're a genius. Your stock goes up in this trade."

The insider, who travels in elite Liberal circles, points to another powerful attraction -- money. "Behind Martin is Earnscliffe. They compete for the same clients that Herb Metcalfe competes for out of Capital Hill Group. And who competes with him? Doug Kirkpatrick -- out of Sussex Group. They all compete for the same clients, and they all compete on the basis of who's got the best political judgment and the best contacts to measure."

Mr. Kirkpatrick is second-in-command of the whole Manley organization and makes no bones about his decision to work for Mr. Manley. He considered working for the Martin team, but realized he would not be part of the inner circle. "Part of the attraction to John's campaign was there was more to do," he says.

Mr. Metcalfe, 52, had known Mr. Manley casually for years, but said it was not until 1999, when the then industry minister "cold- called" him for a game of golf that they began a professional relationship. Mr. Metcalfe advised Mr. Manley to "test the waters" to see if there was an appetite for another candidate in the race. That is when Mr. Manley took Mr. McDougall up on his offer to run the fundraising portion of the campaign.

Mr. Manley's political opponents and many in the media have dismissed him as a viable contender because there are few signs of a legitimate organization in place. Mr. Manley's organization has consisted, until recently, of only the assurances of his supporters. It was more of a virtual team than a real one.

But this week, the virtual appears to be turning kinetic. A campaign office opened in Toronto, with two more slated for Ottawa and Montreal. Campaign workers hold weekly teleconference calls on Monday nights, while Toronto-based volunteers meet on Sundays at a restaurant in the Greek district. And this weekend, in Toronto, Mr. Manley will address 1,000 volunteers at a "campaign college" designed to teach them how to be riding captains, delegates and canvassers.

Even Mrs. Manley has stepped into the limelight in recent weeks, posing with her husband skating the Rideau Canal, and, two weeks ago, flying to Toronto to thank volunteers.

Mr. Manley's officials say they expect Mrs. Manley will hit the campaign trail with her husband if he decides to run. That decision is expected some time after the second week of March, when the couple slip off on a Caribbean cruise to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.

So far, publicity generated by the Manley campaign has been minimal, and what there has been has not been particularly favourable. Last month, Mr. Manley scrambled to explain why his team was exploiting his public office by using the cross-country budget consultations as a platform to raise leadership funds. Last year, he was forced to distance himself from a fundraising letter, written by an overzealous "Friend of John Manley," suggesting businesses could write off campaign donations as a corporate expense.

Although Mr. Manley has categorically denied it, campaign officials have openly conceded he hopes to use the budget as a springboard for his campaign. What he hears from Canadians in the next two weeks as he conducts a post-budget tour is likely to affect his final decision.