The situation in Afghanistan gets grimmer. Despite Ottawa's stay-the-course confidence of recent years, there's no halt to the perdition. The government, some would think, should be paying a price.

But such is not the case and it's due in part to the steady hand of Peter MacKay at the Defence Department. Under Gordon O'Connor, the well-meaning stumblebum who got canned in 2007, the department lurched from one controversy to another. The young Mr. MacKay, adept at dodging bullets, has set it right.

He came to Defence after heading up Foreign Affairs. With precious little experience abroad, he made some early missteps there. He was such a greenhorn, one wag cracked, that he mistook Mozambique for a calypso band. But he got a handle on the department, something his successor, Mad Max Bernier, was unable to do.

In the recent federal election, rugby-player MacKay was supposed to face stiff competition from Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. Stiff, it hardly was. He ate her granola, emptied her cranberry-juice canteen, moved on.

He's 42, two decades younger than Michael Ignatieff. Highly articulate and TV-friendly, he's arguably the best communicator in the Conservative Party. He easily doubles the charisma of Stephen Harper and Jim Prentice.

The credits don't stop there. Mr. MacKay is the player, along with Mr. Harper, who made today's conservative success happen. He played a pivotal role, some say even greater than Mr. Harper, in the 2003 unification of the party.

All this poses the question. Why is Mr. MacKay, in a party short on front-bench talent, not being touted as the next leader? The explanation isn't hard to find. Chalk it up to those old dark shadows that chase him even into his Nova Scotia church on Sundays.

Many still recall his duplicitous display with David (The Walking Time Bomb) Orchard in the Tory leadership convention of several years ago. To win the prize, Mr. MacKay signed a secret pact with the left-leaning Tory, only to renege on it later. Many will not forget or forgive.

Then there was his hitch-up with Belinda Stronach, who bolted Peter and the party in the black of night to join Paul Martin's Liberals. Being a ladies' man works in politics sometimes, other times not. Bachelor Peter has never been in a league in the stud department with the fabled Charles Tupper, the Nova Scotian who earned the moniker "The Ram of Cumberland." But his image was further tarnished.

Although fast on his feet, Mr. MacKay has also been portrayed as policy-lite. You can walk through his deepest thoughts, critics suggest, without getting your feet wet. They said the same of Ronald Reagan - never noted for being excessively encumbered by mental equipment. At times, Brian Mulroney and Jean Charest got similar knocks.

The setbacks laid Mr. MacKay low and, seen as a rival to Mr. Harper, he wasn't about to be showcased by the Prime Minister's Office. But in the three years of Conservative rule, he has slowly but steadily regained credibility. Away from the cameras, he's chafed a bit at his treatment, once complaining to Mr. Mulroney that he was being left on the sidelines. But for the most part, he's been a loyal soldier, doing his job, staying out of trouble, learning French and gaining valuable experience in important portfolios.

On the East Coast, he's emerging as the dominant political force. David Angus, the highly influential lobbyist, who has noticed the turnaround at the Defence Department, put it this way: "I think Peter's got the opportunity to be the regional powerhouse in taking an area of Canada from shithouse to lighthouse."

MacKay admirer Bob Plamondon, author of the Tory history Full Circle and another, Blue Thunder, which is about to be published, maintains that Mr. MacKay has never been rightly recognized for his role in unifying the party. "I would give him more credit than Harper."

Mr. MacKay's Tories were in better shape than Mr. Harper's Alliance party back then and in a merger, suggests Mr. Plamondon, Mr. MacKay had the most to lose. To go ahead with it, he had to renege on the Orchard pact and sink a Tory party with more than a century of history. Leading the Alliance in the polls at the time and being a strong campaigner, Mr. MacKay might have been able to post a decent showing in an election. "But he accepted the inevitability of unification."

The merger turned out to be a gold mine for Stephen Harper, hardly the same for the Maritimer. But he's begun to work his way out of the shadows, to recapture his once promising image and the ultimate reward may one day come. Father Time - a couple of more decades in politics should he wish it - is on Peter MacKay's side.

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