Dion: finally taking control of his image

Wow. After allowing the Conservatives to define his image for him, after months of floundering outside the public eye, after losing the key Liberal riding of Outremont and suffering the criticisms of pundits and party members, Stephan Dion is finally talking straight, taking ownership, and redefining his image.

And frankly, I love what I hear. Dion has taken total ownership over the by-election losses, which is not only the right thing to do, it's also good politics. The worst thing Dion could have done in the aftermath of this Outremont debacle would have been to try to pass the buck or duck from the spotlight. This would have served only to perpetuate the public's misguided perception of him as a limp-wristed waffler- a description that doesn't sit well with me, or with Dion himself. From the CBC:

"I'm taking the responsibility," Dion told the CBC's French-language television program Téléjournal Wednesday night.

"I've always focused on the stakes … but I've never put myself on the line and I understand now that a leader must do that.… A leader has to put himself out there and I didn't do it," he told Radio-Canada host Céline Galipeau during a candid interview in French.

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He believes people don't understand him or his goals.

"I have to have that conversation with all Quebecers so that they understand what I can do if I become prime minister. Up until now I haven't been able to do that.… I'm not what I seem to be."

Now, I'm not a Dion cheerleader, per se. I think his hesitance to utilize the media and capture the public imagination is a real weakness, one that squandered a lot of Liberal momentum after a very healthy, exciting, and high-profile leadership race. But I also think Dion is a very thoughtful, principled, and determined leader. The Conservative characterization of him as a damp-eyed, stoop-shouldered pushover is just flatly inaccurate. Everyone who works with the man says that, if anything, he's too driven, too focused, and too self-assured to bring other people into the fold. His co-workers find him to be dogged and stubborn; a far cry indeed from his current public image. This, after all, is a man who diverged from friends and family to fly the flag of Confederation in an environment of overwhelming Separatist intellectualism. Limp-wristed he just ain't.

So maybe now, after an extremely weak showing out the gate, Dion is finally grabbing the reigns on his public personae. It's long overdue. But bear in mind that he possesses, now, one of the most important and elusive assets of electoral politics: the room to defy expectations.

Can the same be said of Harper?