Charisma

Afighting stance, Schiffer’s big number four. That has to be it; there is, after all, a lot of shouting going on. But what are our leaders fighting for? The territory of Quebec may not be a nation, but the people are. When the resolution was being debated, no one stood up in Parliament, looked Gilles Duceppe in the eye, and said, “You sir, are a separatist. I don’t know how you got here, but this House is in charge of the nation as a whole. So get outta town!”

Indeed, a fighting stance in Canadian politics is increasingly defined negative­ly. By trashing the Liberals on the “sponsorship scandal,” Harper rode the Trojan Horse of accountability into elected office. His campaign slogan, “Stand Up For Canada,” usually means (in the context of Canadian history) a battle royale against the provinces, a fight to put them in their place and to reassert Ottawa’s leadership role. The Liberals had diminished the state, we were led to believe, and it was time to set things right. Instead, time has shown that Har­per is an accommodationist, “restoring the fiscal balance” through transfers to the provinces. The spring budget – in essence Martin’s asymmetric federalism on steroids – says, “I am not scary, not a libertarian, not in favour of a flat tax, not a social conservative, not even a fiscal conservative.” Defined negatively and designed to assuage, it is not a fighting stance at all.

For his part, Dion appears to be for everything. He went along with the soothing balm of the Quebecois as a nation, and then, begging at the high altar of environmentalism, eschewed partisan politics and embraced the Green Party, cooking up a deal not to run a Liberal candidate against Elizabeth May in Nova Scotia. Well, a fighting stance means fighting, even when the field is crowded. Moreover, the narcissism of minor difference usually means hating most profoundly he or she who is closest to you. For many, the Dion-May pact – she won’t field a Green candidate against Dion in Montreal – is political gamesmanship. And the sound and fury of charisma can only emerge when polar­ities are sought, accepted, and a fire is lit.

Jack Layton took the high road and expressed disappointment at the Liberal-Green arrangement not to duke it out in the party leaders’ playgrounds, but one sensed in his protest simple exasperation at being left out in the cold. Meanwhile, Duceppe appears denuded, stripped of any genuine federal foil and forced to accept Quebec’s sovereignty – association by increment, for which he will get little or no credit.

And the commons, the public square? There, the citizens are backing away, tired of faux battles. The people are not interested in a horse race any more than they are attracted to horse trading; they are interested in a genuine fighting stance. On two fronts – the environment and Afghanistan, at home and far away – Dion has a chance to carve out some territory of his own. A green agenda rooted in using the lever­aging power of the federal surplus to support a post – fossil fuel economy, combined with environmental taxes (as disincentives for carrying on with business as usual), would represent a Great Society program. This is Dion’s call from above, and he cannot be shy about it. He must say: “I don’t care if I get arrested for chaining myself to a tree or for creating a roadblock at the gateway to Alberta’s tar sands. I don’t care what you think, there is a clear and present danger and I’m going to save the environment from the bad guys.”

Harper’s fighting stance is offshore – against the Chinese (sort of) and against the Taliban in Afghanistan. But if more body bags come home from that torrid battlefield, expect Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor to be sacrificed (see former Environment Minister Rona Ambrose), and for there to be a sudden change of heart and dir­ection. For the time being, Harper will “support our troops,” but if he has a call from above it is nowhere in evidence. Vis-à-vis Afghanistan, Dion needs a preemptive strike, and it could come with the clear statement: “Actually, fighting terrorism in Kandahar and Helmand provinces is not in our national interest, a diplomatic offensive is.” Fighting stance and call from above? We shall see.

Lessening the chance that either will emerge is the fact that our political leaders come neither from humble beginnings nor high social station. They are middle class, profoundly so, and middle-of-the-road sensibilities tend to stay rooted there. Rags to riches stor­ies resonate, and Bill Clinton, Jean Chrétien, and Brian Mulroney used their working-class narratives to build dreams in the body politic. Just as over­coming obstacles can make leaders populist, so can descending from high station into the muck of public service. Giving up lofty cocktail parties for the grind of stump speeches on the Prairies, the tedium of constitu­ency barbecues, the rank odour of bingo halls, is a sacrifice – the soul of public service. When Mulroney ap­peared too cocksure in Gucci loafers and began to strut, he forgot that people appreciate humility, not vanity. Can­adians skewered him (Kim Campbell bearing the brunt of it). A strutter leaves us with nothing to do but watch and become annoyed.

Related to rising above lowly status or descending from high privilege are traits suggestive of an innovative lifestyle, something different from the prosaic toil of shuttling the little ones to hockey, lacrosse, or ballet. Harper shaking hands with his son was a public relations nightmare, but he’s a quick study and today he can be as friendly with his direct issue as he is with Rick Mercer. Dion’s dog Kyoto is cute; now the Liberal leader needs a televised recording of himself accepting policy advice from the old mutt. (The image of the relationship between Mackenzie King and his dog Pat was an endearing and enduring one.) One can imagine Elizabeth May promoting the composting toilet, and that’s fine, but in downtown Vancouver and Halifax people might also like to see her enjoying a fine bottle of claret. Layton’s got good, solid, athletic legs, and bicycle trips allow him to show them off much better than attempts to replicate iconic canoeing pictures. Duceppe is Duceppe, plus ça change.

A touch of foreignness is thought to be a boon, but given the furor over Dion holding onto his French citizenship – so much for globalization and multiculturalism – one cannot be sure. Collectively, our leaders seem, well, less than foreign, unless you count Duceppe, which would be giving in to his separa­tist cant.

One thing is certain: a clear deficiency, even a physical imperfection, is of paramount importance for charismatic leaders, as it is for celebrities. The problem with David Beckham is that he’s a perfect specimen, skilled and beautiful. On the charisma radar, he registers zero, great to look at but vapid. The former pope had charisma, and became more endearing, if odder, with age. The Queen (or at least Helen Mirren) has it in her way, and Chrétien had it without question.