Let’s show some sympathy for those unfortunate people who have charisma. All their lives, people have liked them. They don’t know why. All they know is that if they smile and say the right kind of things, people will agree with them and even follow them. That works just fine, and they have happy and successful lives.
Until it doesn’t work.
And then they have absolutely no idea what to do, except to try harder. And there is nothing less appealing than someone trying too hard to be charismatic.
The Canadian Political Cycle
Nobody can please all of the people all of the time. In our First Past the Post system, a leader only has to please 35% of the people, and recent data shows that there’s a shelf life on that as well. Chretien: 10 years. Harper: almost 10. Justin Trudeau: 9. Mulroney: 8. And then it drops right down to Diefenbaker at 5.
Face it, there are incredible pressures on political leaders, and no matter how good they are, outside factors, especially the economy, are going to make voters unhappy. And it’s a factor in human nature that we look around for someone to blame and dump the responsibility on them. Then the “greener pastures” phenomenon takes over and, as we have seen in America, the “change for the sake of change, no matter what” takes over, and strange things happen.
Beating the Cycle.
The trick would seem to be that you run one leader until you hit the “best before” date, then switch to another leader and play the “New Broom” gambit. It has worked before, but not often. Didn’t work for the Democrats last year.
Today’s Strategy
The Liberals are long past believing they can win by this move. They’re scrambling for second best right now. The big question is, when should they make the switch? You’re supposed to stay with the old leader until the situation changes enough that the new leader has a better chance. And the answer for the Liberals is, of course, about a year ago.
The Real Problem
Trudeau has been riding his charisma down that long, slow slope to unpopularity but unfortunately, he has one other ability: the talent for acquiring power. So as his popularity with the public wanes, he has focused his efforts on controlling his party. In doing so, he has alienated his best possible successor, thrown the party into disarray, and with his “desperate charisma” efforts, has gradually turned himself into the reason his party is in the 20% approval range.
The Worst Data
The most telling evidence in Ottawa of Trudeau’s troubles is that the opposition parties seem to have dropped their “hate Trudeau” campaigns, preferring instead to watch him dig in deeper and deeper all by himself.
The Bottom Line.
Trudeau has passed the point where staying on for the next election is a viable option. He has become a part of the problem, and the Liberals’ best move is to drop him and try to hold on as long as they can under a new leader, to give that person what little time they can to recover from the aversion to the old leader that is dragging the party down.
I don’t know if there’s time for a leadership convention, but that would create a platform for the new story the Liberals need to tell us.