Charisma

In the political arena, it is not just that people want to be led. They crave a role, a way in, and an imperfection allows them to complete their political representatives. Everyone rallied around the hurt Chrétien when the Conser­vative Party released ads during the 1993 election campaign that attempted to caricature him by poking fun at his facial paralysis. (?That little support fell to Dion after the Conservatives’ “This is unfair” attack ad aired this past winter is due to the clever strategy of using Michael Ignatieff as the antagonist.) Lucien Bouchard garnered enormous sympathy when his leg was amputated. Tru­deau’s marital difficulties reached into homes across the nation. And Clinton’s clumsy adult­erous liaisons made him profoundly human, lost and in need of help.

One of the great difficulties with our current crop of leaders is that they do not appear deficient in any particular way. They are not battle-scarred heroes rising above a certain disadvantage or beating a stigma to the ground. Dion struggles with English, but there is no one with Churchill’s lisp or Moshe Dayan’s eye patch – clear markers of disadvantage. Our leaders strike us as healthy, well-adjusted, and of average height, safe, and strangely immunized to the horrors and accidents that afflict the rest of us. They appear, in short, professional (and without particular flaw) in an arena that ought not be governed by professionals.

The big question for Canadians is, do we want charismatic leaders? Maybe we don’t. Maybe we think that char­isma, like intellectualism, is suspicious. Maybe we want our political represent­atives to be predictable – good stewards of the economy and not much else. Maybe the Ralph Klein/Pierre Trudeau/ Sir John A. Macdonald model is just too wacky. But if it’s stewardship over leadership that is desired, how are Can­adians going to solve the riddles of planetary heat and aboriginal exclusion, our northern vision gap, staying mum about American exceptionalism? These are not normal times, the challenges are exceptional, and solutions must come with a punch, must elevate the masses, must shake us from the torpor of average life. Come on brothers and sisters. Bring it on!