HALIFAX — It hasn't been an easy year-and-a-half for Francis MacKenzie.

The tough-talking but amiable Liberal leader has hammered away at Nova Scotia's Conservatives, hoping to land a solid punch against the minority government.

He claims to have knocked on 5,000 doors in the past several months in a bid to raise his profile.

And the former entrepreneur has been travelling the province non-stop to convince the public that he is the leader who can resurrect the ailing party and form government.

But after all that, analysts say it's unlikely MacKenzie, a 46-year-old businessman who used to run a horse racing operation, can lift the once dominant Liberals out of their third-place standing.

"I don't get the impression that he's taken off with voters,'' said Jennifer Smith, a political science professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

"Either the party has got to deal with it and change it up so people do get a sense of him as a person or I don't think they're going to do very well.''

One of the challenges, observers say, is that MacKenzie came out as such a harsh critic of the previous Tory administration led by former premier John Hamm that voters have come to see him as aggressive and gruff.

A former bureaucrat who once ran the Halifax Citadels hockey franchise, he speaks off the cuff and without thinking through the political ramifications, says local pollster Don Mills.

Mills said MacKenzie, who does not hold a seat in the legislature and has never led the party in an election, has also failed to find a winning issue since taking over the leadership last October after the popular Danny Graham stepped down to be with his wife, who recently died of cancer.

"He's tried to find an issue that would give him some profile and visibility and it just hasn't worked,'' Mills said.

Despite the claims, MacKenzie insists he is speaking for the majority of Nova Scotians when he rhymes off the priorities he plans on promoting during the campaign: stopping the exodus of young people in search of employment, improving the public education system, providing better long-term care for seniors and revitalizing rural Nova Scotia.<

MacKenzie, who was born in St. John's N.L., but raised in Sydney, N.S., got his first taste of politics in 1996 when he ran a government-business partnership involved in economic development in Halifax.

A year later, he became a senior bureaucrat in the provincial Department of Economic Development where he focused on job creation and trade development.

The father of one son and three daughters speaks earnestly when he outlines his hopes for the province and says he is driven by a belief that the Conservatives have frittered away more than $1 billion on programs with little to show for it, while roads crumble and schools fall into disrepair.

"My key issue with the government of the day is that I would have hoped that after six years they could have advanced the broader agenda for our future much more,'' he said in a recent interview while driving back from Cape Breton.

"I'm hoping that the people give me that opportunity to try to create a better future for everyone and if they do I'll do my very, very best to try to make that happen.''

A few facts about Francis MacKenzie:

Age: 46.

Education: Bachelor of business administration, Saint Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, N.S. Master of business administration, Saint Mary's University, Halifax.

Early years: Born in St. John's, N.L., but grew up in Sydney, N.S. Early career in sales for Sealtest/Ault Foods, and Bausch & Lomb Canada. Executive director of the Town of Bedford's Economic Development Commission.

Politics: Worked behind the scenes for the province in the late 1990s as the executive director of investment and trade for the Economic Development Department. Ran for leadership of provincial Liberals in 2002, coming second to Danny Graham. Does not hold a seat in the house, but intends to run in Bedford in this, his first, election.

Family: Wife Gladys, son Theodore and daughters Elizabeth, Allison and Rachel, between the ages of 11 and 18.

Quote:  "I feel very strongly in my heart that we're in a position to form government here. I believe it and I'm hoping that the people give me that opportunity to try to create a better future for everyone.''  Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Francis MacKenzie.