OTTAWA—Jenni Byrne is the most media-averse of the three women heading up the political campaigns in this election.

Yet the campaign director for Stephen Harper’s Conservative re-election bid — a job she also held in 2011 — has been the only one to end up in the headlines, at least so far.

As this extra-long campaign hit the halfway mark this month, Byrne became the target of blame for the Conservatives’ failing fortunes.

While not completely tossed under the bus — as so many Conservatives have found themselves when on the wrong side of Harper — Byrne was taken off the leader’s bus on Day 38 of the election and sent back to headquarters in Ottawa.

“It’s a measure of her success over the long term, actually, that she’s become a lightning rod for the critics,” says Tim Powers, a Conservative public affairs professional.

“Her critics and her friends would both say she’s earned her place at the top.”

Byrne, 38, has come a long way since her days as a young Reform party recruit working in leader Preston Manning’s office during the 1990s. Two other young Reformers in that office around the same time were Ray Novak, now Harper’s chief of staff, and Kory Teneycke, the official spokesman for Harper on the campaign.

This is another irony of Harper’s current inner circle, where Byrne has earned most-trusted status. Harper, as a Reform MP, had an uneasy, often rocky relationship with Manning, even sharing his criticisms occasionally with Ottawa reporters.

Now, though, as Prime Minister, Harper has surrounded himself with former Manning staffers and the price he demands is their utter loyalty, as well as their steadfast avoidance of talking to reporters without his permission.

On this score, Byrne is probably the most loyal, and certainly the most media-unfriendly of them all. She does not give interviews, but she has been flooding her Facebook page with pictures of herself and Harper on the campaign trail. Her Twitter stream is a series of attacks on Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and, to a lesser extent, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair.

People often describe Byrne, whose career has flipped back and forth between Conservative party offices and the PMO over the past few years, as combative.

Stories of her swearing at public servants and outbursts of her famous temper circulate throughout political Ottawa. It’s said that on display in her office is a seal-hunting weapon known as a hakapik— a souvenir of an actual seal hunt she went on, but also a not-so-subtle, metaphorical reminder of her willingness to wage battle.

Jim Armour, who served as Harper’s communications director in his early days as Canadian Alliance leader, says Byrne proved herself invaluable when Harper took over the Alliance and started cleaning up the party, from the riding level up. He needed someone who knew the grassroots — which Byrne did — and someone who wasn’t afraid to lay down the law.

“There are a lot of folks in politics who talk big when it comes to reining people in…but you usually find no one has the guts to pull the trigger,” says Armour. “Jenni does.”

She also serves as a useful shield for Harper. Better that people be angry at a staffer than a leader, says Armour, and “she’s an easy person to blame. She’s got very broad shoulders and can personally take it.”

Her first real power job was “issues management” in the PMO in 2008, succeeding Keith Beardsley.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Byrne took a very different approach than Beardsley. “We were much more cordial,” he says diplomatically.

Byrne turned the job of issues management, once contained within the PMO, into a network, with people in each minister’s office answering to her. She called 7 a.m. meetings — with mandatory attendance — and woe to the staffer who arrived unprepared. Byrne made no secret of her impatience with or scorn for anyone who had inadequate answers.

“Wherever she goes she builds an empire,” says one Conservative, who preferred, like many others, to speak anonymously about Byrne.

Beardsley agrees Byrne worked hard, always taking on tasks that no one else wanted to do. And though Byrne can be fierce, she can also be fiercely loyal — not just to Harper, but to staff who work for her.

“She’s very forceful and that really intimidates a lot of people,” says Beardsley. “She’s made a lot of enemies.”

Yaroslav Baran, now a principal with the Earnscliffe Strategy Group, worked with Byrne in the early days of the Conservative government and in the old “war rooms” of election campaigns. “She’s got a real strength of character; a take-no-prisoners kind of person,” he said.

Baran wonders whether her tough reputation would be as controversial if she were a man in the same position. “I would posit there is a double standard,” he says. Men with Byrne’s management style tend to be called strong leaders, but “when it’s a woman exhibiting those attributes, many people interpret those attributes in a less than flattering way.”

Born and raised in the village of Fenelon Falls, Ont., Byrne constantly reminds Conservatives that their job is to stay in touch with their base. She is the one who will pipe up in a meeting about how an issue will be seen at the local Tim Hortons.

“She’s positioned herself as the person who stays in touch with the ‘true Conservatives’ — the ones with small-town, Main St. values,” says Powers. He describes her as a “truth-tester” for Conservatism under Harper, who shares Byrne’s suspicion of all things Ottawa and “elite.”

“She hasn’t been Ottawashed. She hasn’t succumbed to hanging out at Hy’s or sipping Prosecco in wine bars around town. She stays grounded.”

Byrne keeps her private life private, though it is well-known that she dated Pierre Poilievre up to 2011, before he became a cabinet minister. She has a close circle of friends, many of them working with her in government, and they socialize away from the spotlight.

The person to whom she seems to be the closest, though, is her boss, Stephen Harper. It is for him that Byrne has earned the fearsome reputation she has acquired in power, making her own leadership style a mirror image of the prime minister’s.