It seems like everybody is dissecting Iggy these days, so I might as well try too.

Chris Selley has been expounding on how Ignatieff needs to do or say something bold and worthy of his intellect/eyebrows. I think that’s a good idea, too, although I find the points that he made today more compelling than did Chris.

But it seems to me that this suggestion only takes the party further down the path of hero worship and cultishness that it has struggled with since Martin and Chretien had it out in the early oughts.

A party that derives its strength from one man’s ideas and personal loyalties and eyebrows will have serious structural weaknesses, however sparklingly clever, screamingly idolatrous or bushy.

First, those who are not convinced by the leader to begin with are unlikely to become more so — especially once said leader appears to royally screw things up, as Iggy has since his coronation. Second, the leader cannot afford to make any enemies, particularly among the friends he already has. There isn’t the depth of commitment required to make hard decisions (e.g. about personnel) affordable for the leader. Third, those around the leader are prone to becoming out-of-touch and to making the leader’s enemies for him, because there is no incentive for them to make real concessions to any other potential powerbroker.

Outside the leadership bubble things are even worse. MPs lose their incentive to behave responsibly or to advance the fortunes of the party, because their chances of leveraging any proven accomplishments into political influence are minimal. Leaks, backbiting, etc. are the result. Ridings, meanwhile, can elect (or not, per recent events) wackier and more parochial candidates, because the potential benefits of electing someone who’s cabinet material have faded into memory. As a result, the party’s electoral fortunes will tend to stagnate at whatever level they were at when the decline began (or somewhat lower): the supporters they had stay, because they are getting the candidates they want, but nobody else has any interest whatsoever in their antics.

The Conservatives demonstrate these weaknesses amply. The differences are that (a) they are in power, so this stagnation benefits them; (b) they arguably have a slightly larger and more excitable base of natural support than the Liberals; (c) they aren’t trying to do anything worth mentioning or to switch leaders, so they rarely run into serious trouble; and (d) they were essentially formed as a personality cult, so they don’t have the kind of infighting between different personality cults and old-timers and regional factions that the Liberals have run into.

So what is to be done?

As Chris points out, Iggy does have a very full front bench. It’s those assets that I’d like to see him leverage, in the way that Chretien did in 1993 or 1997. Can you imagine the distress in which a Conservative cabinet minister would find himself, facing off against Bob Rae or Gerard Kennedy? Knowing that, it’s unlikely that any cabinet ministers would actually show up to the debate. But surely, surely a suitable forum could be found to show off this bench. Preferably one that’s NOT another leadership convention.

There are no miracles for the Liberals at this point. Over time, though, it will take a dedication to Team rather than to King to rebuild the party and get it past some of those structural obstacles to success. (One further challenge: most of that bench is from Toronto, centre of the universe, black hole of political fortune. Again, though, a more meritocratic party power structure might encourage stronger candidates and more functional party machinery in other regions.)

From this perspective, Chris’s advice could actually be harmful, inspiring though it would be to see it happen. This is a sort of corollary to Wells’ law — that the party leader who auditions for the role of opposition leader, gets it. Opposition leaders are isolated voices screaming in the wilderness. They have shadow cabinets, not teams. If Iggy focuses on making himself the shining star and great white knight of disenchanted Canadians, he is more likely to play to this type.

He is constrained, too, by his opponents. Contra Chris, I don’t believe that Iggy can afford to reveal any ideas too brilliant at this time — because the Conservatives, specifically Harper, have shown absolutely no hesitation in adopting policies wildly at odds with their stated beliefs and/or election platforms.

But you can’t steal talent — certainly not in the Conservative Party under Harper, which as mentioned suffers the same disincentives to performance that the Liberals have flaunted for the past five years. So what Iggy can afford to do is prove that the Liberals can govern, with a depth of competence and talent that the Conservatives can only dream about for now. (And there’s no reason why, after a few workmanlike announcements from Ken Dryden, Iggy couldn’t show off a few phrases he copped from Obama picked up at Harvard, and a few of the querulous but menacing eyebrow lifts he copped from Professor Dumbledore is so known for.)

Ironically, this would be a bit of a repeat of Harper’s strategy in 2006: just go out every week and prove that you can announce or make a reasonable argument about one thing, that makes sense, and appeals to some definable constituency (“sea to shining sea” is not a constituency). Prove that We Can Do Better. Please.