OUCH
It’s not the policies – Erin O’Toole lacks charisma and appeal as a political leaderJOHN DOYLE
TELEVISION CRITIC
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Erin O’Toole never came across as an inspiring, in-charge leader.
ADRIAN WYLD/THE CANADIAN PRESS
This column is keeping a close eye on events in Ottawa. There’s a continuing drama there. It’s got a repetitive plot line, but while some players in the narrative change, the central figure remains the same. That’s Erin O’Toole.
Keeping a close eye means watching CBC News Network, in particular Power & Politics, CTV News Channel and such. It’s a no-fun assignment, but it does make a person an expert on household aids for the elderly and infirm. What’s being discussed often these past few weeks are attempts to undermine O’Toole’s leadership of the Conservative Party. Cabals have formed and been muted, and there’s been more than one attempt to launch a petition aimed at forcing a referendum on O’Toole’s leadership soon, rather than wait for a confidence vote in 2023.
These recalcitrant rebels accuse O’Toole of abandoning core Conservative principles and shifting the party’s policies to the centre leading up to the Sept. 20 federal election.
They’re missing the point – O’Toole’s weakness is his lack of charisma. In TV appearances and TV election ads, from his body language to his tone, even to his clothes and demeanour, O’Toole never came across as an inspiring, in-charge leader.
Winning in political campaigns is less about policy than it is about being a forceful presence in front of the cameras and in front of crowds of people. It can take ages to digest policy platforms, and few voters have the time to do it, but it takes only an instant to get the measure of a politician on TV, especially if they’re being asked questions. That’s just one area where O’Toole failed.
The backroom people who prep a leader for an election campaign have a bag of tricks they use. In O’Toole’s case he looked trimmer than before, wore a casual suit, often without a necktie, or no suit, and wore sneakers a lot. The idea was to make him suburban dad-like, relaxed and man-of-the-people. On the cover of “Canada’s Recovery Plan” O’Toole posed in a T-shirt with muscled arms folded, trying to suggest a Mike Holmes type. Nice try, but Mike Holmes has presence and charisma. O’Toole does not. Also, Mike Holmes’s brand has diminished a bit since he began hawking other companies that repair your bathroom or basement or something.
Humour and positivity matter, too. The audience projects hope onto such people, reassured and charmed by the confidence. And there’s automatic admiration of the unruffled, relaxed and self-deprecating manner of some politicians. O’Toole doesn’t do self-deprecation. (Maybe the sneakers were meant to signal that. Who knows? He was a perambulating confusion of media images.) Often politicians can seem self-conscious when they complain or rant, and O’Toole complained about the Liberals but he didn’t rant a lot. Maybe he was warned not to seem unhinged and angry. Finally, the most successful politicians are the rare ones who seems fully at peace with themselves and comfortable in their own skin. Watch O’Toole closely on TV and you don’t get that air of ease and confidence.
The attributes just listed, whether accrued naturally or taught, are excellent tools to help stand out in a media-saturated age, but to be successful, they must be used to deliver a discernible message. You can be grinning, cheery and utterly at ease on TV, but your message must be clear.
That’s where O’Toole’s already confusing media campaign went awry and it’s where those recalcitrant rebels might be a little bit right – the messaging on some issues was muddled. The most recent rebel against O’Toole’s leadership, Senator Denise Batters, made a video to state her complaints about O’Toole and she said, “On carbon tax, on guns, on conscience rights, he flip-flopped on our policies within the same week, the same day and even within the same sentence.”
Ouch. It’s exaggerating a bit, but is fundamentally correct. Policy positions shifted mid-campaign and changed from O’Toole’s 2020 leadership platform, making O’Toole’s answers to some questions hesitant and unclear. This was not restricted to the issues of guns and vaccinations. In the platform he used to become Conservative leader, he’d promised to defund the CBC: “I’ll defund CBC television and save taxpayers billions. Here’s how I’ll get it done: End all funding to CBC Digital; cut funding for CBC English TV and News Network by 50 per cent, with the goal to fully privatize CBC by the end of my first mandate; maintain funding for CBC Radio and Radio-Canada.”
During the federal election, there was an excruciating moment on CPAC when his new plan was explained as “a review assessing the viability of refocusing” the CBC. That’s what’s known as gibberish.
When you lack charisma, change positions and talk gibberish you are not an electable leader. That’s the glaring subtext of the drama unfolding in Ottawa. Never mind the Mike Holmes look; O’Toole doesn’t have the tools, in media-savviness or pizzazz, to be elected prime minister.
This column is keeping a close eye on events in Ottawa. There’s a continuing drama there. It’s got a repetitive plot line, but while some players in the narrative change, the central figure remains the same. That’s Erin O’Toole.
Keeping a close eye means watching CBC News Network, in particular Power & Politics, CTV News Channel and such. It’s a no-fun assignment, but it does make a person an expert on household aids for the elderly and infirm. What’s being discussed often these past few weeks are attempts to undermine O’Toole’s leadership of the Conservative Party. Cabals have formed and been muted, and there’s been more than one attempt to launch a petition aimed at forcing a referendum on O’Toole’s leadership soon, rather than wait for a confidence vote in 2023.
These recalcitrant rebels accuse O’Toole of abandoning core Conservative principles and shifting the party’s policies to the centre leading up to the Sept. 20 federal election.
They’re missing the point – O’Toole’s weakness is his lack of charisma. In TV appearances and TV election ads, from his body language to his tone, even to his clothes and demeanour, O’Toole never came across as an inspiring, in-charge leader.
Winning in political campaigns is less about policy than it is about being a forceful presence in front of the cameras and in front of crowds of people. It can take ages to digest policy platforms, and few voters have the time to do it, but it takes only an instant to get the measure of a politician on TV, especially if they’re being asked questions. That’s just one area where O’Toole failed.
The backroom people who prep a leader for an election campaign have a bag of tricks they use. In O’Toole’s case he looked trimmer than before, wore a casual suit, often without a necktie, or no suit, and wore sneakers a lot. The idea was to make him suburban dad-like, relaxed and man-of-the-people. On the cover of “Canada’s Recovery Plan” O’Toole posed in a T-shirt with muscled arms folded, trying to suggest a Mike Holmes type. Nice try, but Mike Holmes has presence and charisma. O’Toole does not. Also, Mike Holmes’s brand has diminished a bit since he began hawking other companies that repair your bathroom or basement or something.
Humour and positivity matter, too. The audience projects hope onto such people, reassured and charmed by the confidence. And there’s automatic admiration of the unruffled, relaxed and self-deprecating manner of some politicians. O’Toole doesn’t do self-deprecation. (Maybe the sneakers were meant to signal that. Who knows? He was a perambulating confusion of media images.) Often politicians can seem self-conscious when they complain or rant, and O’Toole complained about the Liberals but he didn’t rant a lot. Maybe he was warned not to seem unhinged and angry. Finally, the most successful politicians are the rare ones who seems fully at peace with themselves and comfortable in their own skin. Watch O’Toole closely on TV and you don’t get that air of ease and confidence.
The attributes just listed, whether accrued naturally or taught, are excellent tools to help stand out in a media-saturated age, but to be successful, they must be used to deliver a discernible message. You can be grinning, cheery and utterly at ease on TV, but your message must be clear.
That’s where O’Toole’s already confusing media campaign went awry and it’s where those recalcitrant rebels might be a little bit right – the messaging on some issues was muddled. The most recent rebel against O’Toole’s leadership, Senator Denise Batters, made a video to state her complaints about O’Toole and she said, “On carbon tax, on guns, on conscience rights, he flip-flopped on our policies within the same week, the same day and even within the same sentence.”
Ouch. It’s exaggerating a bit, but is fundamentally correct. Policy positions shifted mid-campaign and changed from O’Toole’s 2020 leadership platform, making O’Toole’s answers to some questions hesitant and unclear. This was not restricted to the issues of guns and vaccinations. In the platform he used to become Conservative leader, he’d promised to defund the CBC: “I’ll defund CBC television and save taxpayers billions. Here’s how I’ll get it done: End all funding to CBC Digital; cut funding for CBC English TV and News Network by 50 per cent, with the goal to fully privatize CBC by the end of my first mandate; maintain funding for CBC Radio and Radio-Canada.”
During the federal election, there was an excruciating moment on CPAC when his new plan was explained as “a review assessing the viability of refocusing” the CBC. That’s what’s known as gibberish.
When you lack charisma, change positions and talk gibberish you are not an electable leader. That’s the glaring subtext of the drama unfolding in Ottawa. Never mind the Mike Holmes look; O’Toole doesn’t have the tools, in media-savviness or pizzazz, to be elected prime minister.
IT'S THE POLICIES TOO
NP Comment
John Robson: Perhaps Erin O'Toole and Jason Kenney could try being conservatives
Programmatic conservatism has three legs: traditional social values, strong national defence and free market economics
Author of the article: John Robson
Publishing date:Nov 16, 2021 •
John Robson: Perhaps Erin O'Toole and Jason Kenney could try being conservatives
Programmatic conservatism has three legs: traditional social values, strong national defence and free market economics
Author of the article: John Robson
Publishing date:Nov 16, 2021 •
Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole listens to a question from a reporter during a news conference following a caucus meeting in Ottawa on Oct. 5, 2021.
PHOTO BY THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE
The front page of Tuesday’s National Post highlighted the obvious troubles of Jason Kenney and Erin O’Toole , namely dismal polling numbers and party revolts. But the cause deserves attention too: Both deliberately jettisoned any semblance of principle in pursuit of partisan gain and for some reason aren’t popular with conservatives or voters. Weird, huh?
Kenney did win an Alberta election after uniting various conservative fragments. It’s easier than, say, doing it federally. But since it was all about the brass ring, give some credit for having grasped it briefly. Then consider columnist Don Braid’s claim that Monday “should have been one of Premier Jason Kenney’s best days in office” because he’d gotten hold of free money from Ottawa to shower on voters willing to let the state raise their kids for them.
Incorrect. Such social engineering might be wise. It might be popular. But it’s not conservative in any way shape or form. And if you say so much the worse for conservatism, you can join the NDP, or the Liberals who appear to be having Canada’s first NDP prime minister and loving it. But if you’re going to present as conservative, you need some conservatism or the base will turn on you and so will the public.
G.K. Chesterton warned about platitudes “in peril of becoming one of those things that are accepted ‘in principle’ by all unprincipled men.” In Canada one such is that conservatism is yucky. It may have a certain ignoble utility in rallying the rubes if they form part of your deplorable base, but it is both socially disreputable and intellectually laughable.
Kenney and O’Toole radiate that attitude. And it’s not working for them, and can’t.
The front page of Tuesday’s National Post highlighted the obvious troubles of Jason Kenney and Erin O’Toole , namely dismal polling numbers and party revolts. But the cause deserves attention too: Both deliberately jettisoned any semblance of principle in pursuit of partisan gain and for some reason aren’t popular with conservatives or voters. Weird, huh?
Kenney did win an Alberta election after uniting various conservative fragments. It’s easier than, say, doing it federally. But since it was all about the brass ring, give some credit for having grasped it briefly. Then consider columnist Don Braid’s claim that Monday “should have been one of Premier Jason Kenney’s best days in office” because he’d gotten hold of free money from Ottawa to shower on voters willing to let the state raise their kids for them.
Incorrect. Such social engineering might be wise. It might be popular. But it’s not conservative in any way shape or form. And if you say so much the worse for conservatism, you can join the NDP, or the Liberals who appear to be having Canada’s first NDP prime minister and loving it. But if you’re going to present as conservative, you need some conservatism or the base will turn on you and so will the public.
G.K. Chesterton warned about platitudes “in peril of becoming one of those things that are accepted ‘in principle’ by all unprincipled men.” In Canada one such is that conservatism is yucky. It may have a certain ignoble utility in rallying the rubes if they form part of your deplorable base, but it is both socially disreputable and intellectually laughable.
Kenney and O’Toole radiate that attitude. And it’s not working for them, and can’t.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.
PHOTO BY DAVID BLOOM/POSTMEDIA
We expect a New York Times “news” story to say “Biden signs infrastructure bill, promoting benefits for Americans. Billions of dollars will now pour into American communities” and not ask whether borrowed money is real wealth, every dollar spent on handouts doesn’t ultimately have to be raised in taxes, government is doing too much for (or to) the people that they should be doing for themselves and so on. But if conservative parties do not ask such questions, their supporters and voters will rightly ask what they are even for.
Programmatic conservatism has three legs: traditional social values, strong national defence and free market economics. Normally the unprincipled types pre-emptively chuck the first and pay lip service to the second but spend all the money on social programs, which dooms their efforts to rally at the third and last ditch. And it is an even worse idea than it sounds, because conservatism has a metaphysical foundation they too often casually forget rather than deliberately reject.
Fundamentally, the reason conservatives believe in the policies they believe in is that they are convinced there is something to believe in. There really is Truth, epistemological and moral. They don’t and can’t think winning is everything. So they’re far less comfortable than the relativist parties with abandoning principle even for immediate gain, let alone humiliating defeat, including by substituting organizational ruthlessness for conviction.
As for the general public, I think partisan conservatives frustrated that their beliefs seem to be a hard sell underestimate their inherent advantages. The late great political scientist Robert Conquest formulated a series of Laws of Politics that regrettably lack canonical form because he expounded them in conversation not a formal treatise. But one has been given as “Generally speaking, everybody is reactionary on subjects he knows about” or “Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.”
Conquest did not mean they’re the progressive parody of conservatism, ignorant, bigoted and frozen with fear. Rather, they have a common-sense preference in their professional and personal lives for the tried and true over the speculative and uninformed. They know that to scoff at faith and honour is fatal to a community, that lying is wrong and so is infidelity, and I don’t just mean sexual, and that if you don’t work you die.
They may not like being reminded of these things. So it’s tempting to take the easy way out and try to bribe them instead, if you are unprincipled. But unfortunately for such politicians, especially under a conservative banner, most normal human beings admire honourable conduct and dislike weasels. So in practice conservatives willing to stay the course gain more than they lose, unlike their more “worldly” rivals. And where shall we find such people?
Not on that front page. Instead, another of Conquest’s laws is “The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies” or, even more bluntly, “Every organization appears to be headed by secret agents of its opponents.”
Hey, Jason Kenney and Erin O’Toole, we found your real problem.
We expect a New York Times “news” story to say “Biden signs infrastructure bill, promoting benefits for Americans. Billions of dollars will now pour into American communities” and not ask whether borrowed money is real wealth, every dollar spent on handouts doesn’t ultimately have to be raised in taxes, government is doing too much for (or to) the people that they should be doing for themselves and so on. But if conservative parties do not ask such questions, their supporters and voters will rightly ask what they are even for.
Programmatic conservatism has three legs: traditional social values, strong national defence and free market economics. Normally the unprincipled types pre-emptively chuck the first and pay lip service to the second but spend all the money on social programs, which dooms their efforts to rally at the third and last ditch. And it is an even worse idea than it sounds, because conservatism has a metaphysical foundation they too often casually forget rather than deliberately reject.
Fundamentally, the reason conservatives believe in the policies they believe in is that they are convinced there is something to believe in. There really is Truth, epistemological and moral. They don’t and can’t think winning is everything. So they’re far less comfortable than the relativist parties with abandoning principle even for immediate gain, let alone humiliating defeat, including by substituting organizational ruthlessness for conviction.
As for the general public, I think partisan conservatives frustrated that their beliefs seem to be a hard sell underestimate their inherent advantages. The late great political scientist Robert Conquest formulated a series of Laws of Politics that regrettably lack canonical form because he expounded them in conversation not a formal treatise. But one has been given as “Generally speaking, everybody is reactionary on subjects he knows about” or “Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.”
Conquest did not mean they’re the progressive parody of conservatism, ignorant, bigoted and frozen with fear. Rather, they have a common-sense preference in their professional and personal lives for the tried and true over the speculative and uninformed. They know that to scoff at faith and honour is fatal to a community, that lying is wrong and so is infidelity, and I don’t just mean sexual, and that if you don’t work you die.
They may not like being reminded of these things. So it’s tempting to take the easy way out and try to bribe them instead, if you are unprincipled. But unfortunately for such politicians, especially under a conservative banner, most normal human beings admire honourable conduct and dislike weasels. So in practice conservatives willing to stay the course gain more than they lose, unlike their more “worldly” rivals. And where shall we find such people?
Not on that front page. Instead, another of Conquest’s laws is “The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies” or, even more bluntly, “Every organization appears to be headed by secret agents of its opponents.”
Hey, Jason Kenney and Erin O’Toole, we found your real problem.
