An Image-Conscious World

That's the world we inhabit. We are so busy, so involved, we feel too often we scarcely have time or the inclination to look beyond the superficial. What we see at first glance is what we believe the exterior reveals about the interior. Sometimes we're right, often enough we're not. But in politics, where the manner in which a candidate for public office portrays himself and expresses himself, the image he or she initially conveys tends to be the one that sticks.

All the more so when that candidate is incapable of communicating deftly, effortlessly, with a certain verbal skill, in a language not entirely familiar to him. This places the candidate in an obvious deficit position. In the case of Stephane Dion, image at first was to his benefit; he was described as highly intelligent, a former academic, a man of great integrity and probity, a man whose love for country was not under debate.

Trouble was, he had unfortunate baggage from day one. Cerebral he may be, but a high degree of intelligence does not necessarily a good politician make. Moreover, in his previous tenure in the since-disgraced Liberal government of Jean Chretien, and the following brief tenure with Paul Martin, Mr. Dion held an environment post with which he accomplished nothing at all, despite his impassioned declarations of support for the Kyoto Accord.

It has not, needless to say, helped him very much that the current Conservative government under Stephen Harper, has gone out of its way to denigrate Mr. Dion's vaunted intelligence as a political leader, labelling him a tax-and-spend exemplar. In so doing, encouraging the electorate further to solidify their already-deleterious opinion of a leader who appeared to fumble, offering feeble threats to the Conservative government agenda, never carrying through on them.

In the light of which history, Mr. Dion's complaints of shabby treatment by his political opponents fall on deaf ears, for the most part. The simple fact of the matter seems to be that being a decent human being, a highly intelligent individual, insisting that he alone among the political leaders contesting the leadership in this general election of 2008, will avail him scant advantage in the face of his rather pathetic appeal for support and understanding.

The Canadian electorate wants to be presented with a strong, confident, knowledgeable and capable leader, and Mr. Dion simply does not inspire confidence. Despite his continued attestations with respect to his personal suitability. He may indeed have confidence in himself, his dedication to the enormous tasks facing the country, his ability to surmount them and make Canada a better country, but the greater majority of Canadians remain to be convinced.

And they won't be, in the brief space yet allotted to him to convince them that he's the right man for the job, leadership head of the right party, before election day. When even Ed Broadbent, the highly seasoned and respected former leader of the New Democratic Party is of the opinion that Mr. Dion hasn't presented as leadership material on the basis of his own campaign, that's fair enough evidence that it is not merely voter bias.

"He's incredibly smart and knowledgeable. He has facts at his command and can marshal them quickly in an academic setting, but he's not much given to dialogue and likes having the final word. He can sometimes give the impression of talking down to you like a schoolteacher. Even if politicians feel they have the right answer they have to be prepared to enter into dialogue. That's the downside of being an academic in a political setting."

That's the considered opinion of an academic who admires Mr. Dion, a former colleague at the University of Montreal, Daniel Weinstock. The voting public is not amenable to being hectored and lectured, nor patronized. Stephane Dion famously claims that he wants to debate Mr. Harper on the vital issues that face Canada today, but Mr. Harper is not interested in anything but fobbing him off, and what a pity it is that Mr. Harper will not submit to dialogue. Mr. Dion appears himself guilty of what he charges Mr. Harper.

While it may very well be true that unfair accusations, a vitriolic and nasty campaign has resulted in the political opposition having placed Mr. Dion at a disadvantage in the public mind, and that the news media have been only too happy to add their critical commentary to the noxious potion, perhaps Mr. Dion has himself to blame. For a man who claims to be humble in nature - and which he very well may be - it takes a certain amount of ego to insist that he's the man for the job.

Public perception appears to challenge him on this self-propelled observation. And, from the hints that continue to snidely erupt from his own caucus, there are more than enough failed leadership candidates who still believe his come-from-behind win was an unfortunate anomaly, a political erratic.