Sub-Prime Politics: Dion Smarts Versus Iggy Pop
So I read Rex Murphy on the weekend and was treated to his eloquent commentary on the Liberal Party’s current state of affairs regarding the leader and leadership rivals. Further into the G&M, there was a full page headline on Stephane Dion stating, Is it him, or is it us?
These two articles are just the most recent piling on by the media on the perceived weakness of the Liberal leader. You have to feel for the guy who hadn’t had much time to breathe after being elected head of the Grits. Day after day, month after month - reports, commentaries, attack ads¦.you name it - Dion is in the middle of a media storm that is larger than most election campaigns.
With all this sound bite fury, it is easy to just assume or assign blame on Dion - maybe he is weak - perhaps his level of English is indicative of his limitations as a politician? As I have heard often recently, in politics Wrong and strong beats weak and right. With logic like this, how can the geeky Dion stand a chance, especially with the slick and polished leadership rivals: Michael Iggy Ignatieff and Bob Rae, now standing at his side and Harper staring him down from across the isle?
It’s all over for Dion, isn’t it? Too much conventional wisdom is against him. Except something doesn’t quite fit.
Almost all of the criticism of Dion, at least in the last couple of months, is about superficial qualities: his accent, his posture, his looks compared to his colleagues. Sure the press throws in some talk about votes in parliament and how the master chess player Harper who apparently thinks 20,000 moves ahead of everyone else, out maneuvered Dion yet again - but all the talk is on the process of the vote and not the substance of what they were voting on.
At what point did the framework for politics become ALL about the image and ZERO about substance. The two have always played a role, but we have gone way off the scale in recent months.
Looking at the Stephane issue another way, if you were to put Dion, Harper, Iggy, Rae in a line up and had to pick who would you trust the most. I would guess that the majority of people would pick Dion. Or who of the lot would you trust to really deal with the environment? Or who would make the least biased choice to send our troops to war? Or how about the basic question of who would mold Canada into a country you would be proud to live in?
These would seem to be legit questions for the Canadian press or for Liberal party members. But most are content to favour Iggy for his ability to smartly wear a tweed jacket, or Rae for is ability to go an MC impersonation (as he did at the Liberal leadership convention).
As far as I’m concerned, Dion still has the most to offer as a potential Prime Minister. Not because he talks a good game, but because he is the only one who has a vision for the country and the real smarts to put it into practice. Not that anyone has focused on it lately, but far from being the compromise leadership candidate, Dion was the only one who combined the twin towers of integrity and purpose when he was elected head of the party. The other front runners were establishment flash with the promise of more of the same.
Some blame must be assigned to Dion for not keeping his eye on the ball, but it must be near impossible with the media storm that follows his every step.
If I could talk to the Liberal leader for five minutes I would urge the guy to return to the roots of his leadership campaign and keep plugging the reason why he wanted to be Prime Minister in the first place: remind us of the vision, and then back it up at every available moment - votes in parliament on only one way to communicate this. Make sure you surround yourself with the right advisors to do this. There is no point in having people around you if they are trying to make you be something you are not - and that’s the key for Dion. Be the leader that got you to where you are; that brought new people to the party; the one who promised a fresh start for the Liberals. The one defined by Dion primarily, but was backed up by bright new faces such as Gerard Kennedy and Martha Hall-Findley.
That’s the guy who got me to take a look at the Liberals in the first place and I’m still waiting for him to get off his heels and go on the offensive.
