Harpermania?? Dionmania?? Huh?
After decades of having prime ministers who spent far too much time obsessing over their personal popularity with Canadians, I can't tell you how refreshing it is to see this.
Maybe now Canadians will focus more on the policies and platforms of their particular leader of choice rather than waste their time wondering if s[he] can do a cartwheel off the high diving board. Just sayin'.
Update
According to the Harris-Decima poll, Dion fared even worse than Harper when it came to personality.
Worse then Harper? The same guy who jokingly said he had the charisma of an accountant. Ouch!
Ya know, maybe Gerry's theory that Dion would lose to a carrot isn't all that far fetched after all. ;-)
5 Comments:
I notice there was one on 'values', but who knows what their values even are.
According to the Harris-Decima poll, Dion fared even worse than Harper when it came to personality.
Worse then Harper? The same guy who jokingly said he had the charisma of an accountant. Ouch!
Ya know, maybe Gerry's theory that Dion would lose to a carrot isn't all that far fetched after all. ;-)
A carrot holds more weight and strength at the top, unlike Dion's party organization.
wink. wink. mr. carroll.
There is a basic fact to remember, and thats that a good percentage of Canadians vote AGAINST parties not for them. However, lets be realistic, who really thought that Chretien, Martin, Campbell, or Mulroney had charisma or a personality? Any that they had was clearly fabricated by the media, even Trudeau turned out to be dull as dishwater once Trudeaumania and television campaigning became a thing of the past. Try to find a politician with charisma and you'll be looking a long hard time.
To me, charisma is multi-faceted.
It's how a leader handles themselves in a crowd, even amongst a crowd of protestors against their own policies. For example, remember John Tory's poor body language when the women stood in his way and questioned him in the crowd on faith base school funding. Someone with charisma may have handled that better.
It's how a leader conveys a message when doing a speaking engagement. Remember Bernard Lord's speech in Edmonton in 2003 or Barak Obama's speech to the dems in 2004? Now that was chrisma!
It's how one handles the press. Yes, the press will always have an uneasy relationship with leaders, but that won't make them stop writing about you. So it's important to make them at least feel as if they count. That takes a bit of charisma.
It's how a leader shows that s[he] has feelings without making themselves appear to be weak. Remember when Reagan teared up a bit after speaking about the breaking down of the Berlin wall. That is what is called emotional charisma.
All charisma and all necessary for a leader to connect with the people. In Canada, it really isn't that far off when guys like Charles demand their leaders be approachable in public. People notice.
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