Politics is a thoroughly miserable profession.
It treats many of its practitioners, not with the deference or respect they may merit, but with cruel contempt. Too often, the career of a politician is, to borrow a phrase from philosopher Thomas Hobbes, nasty, brutish and short.
Alison Redford discovered this in the weeks leading up to her resignation as premier of Alberta. It wasn’t really a resignation so much as it was a political ‘assassination.’ She was ‘assassinated’ by her own party, by her Progressive Conservative caucus. Caucus members didn’t like her style. She had won the leadership in October 2011 with almost no caucus support (only one MLA voted for her) and went on to capture a majority government the following year.
Notwithstanding her success (or because of it), her caucus resented her – partly because to them she was an outsider, partly because she was a pinker Tory than most of them, and partly, I believe, because she was a woman who had succeeded in a province where politics is still played by old-boy rules.
She treated her followers like professionals instead of what they were: a bunch of sulky children whose little noses were out of joint. She didn’t stroke them enough, make them feel important enough, or invite them home for dinner often enough. And she didn’t keep them busy enough — too busy to waste time plotting her ‘assassination.’
She made mistakes, but they were not mistakes of government policy (Alberta continues to be one of the best-run provinces), nor were they mistakes of political strategy (she trounced the right-wing Wildrose party in the provincial election two years ago).
The mistakes were more personal – travel expenses and the use of government aircraft. It was entirely reasonable that she should fly to South Africa for the funeral of Nelson Mandela, with whom she had worked in the 1990s. But she should have paid attention to the cost of the trip. That $45,000 should have set off alarm bells. In the end, she reimbursed the treasury, but the damage was done.
She stood accused of being a wastrel with an overweening sense of entitlement. As we have seen with the Senate expense scandal, relatively small amounts can cause large damage: for Mike Duffy, it was $90,000; in Redford’s case that $45,000 left her vulnerable to attack by people who didn’t like her for other, less commendable reasons. She became the target of a nasty (and brutish) smear campaign.
Caucus members bitched about her leadership style. One MLA complained that Redford had a short temper and was not a “nice lady.” So the poor aggrieved fellow quit the caucus. Caucus members spread false tales that Redford had abused a member of her staff — an allegation that turned out to be without foundation.
The damage was done. Governments’ poll numbers often crater at the mid-point of their terms (as Stephen Harper and the federal Conservatives could attest today) and Redford’s were no exception. Support for the Alberta PCs dropped to the 20 per cent range, Wildrose was re-energized, and, after 43 unbroken years in office, the Tories panicked.
In Ottawa, the federal Conservatives’ poll numbers aren’t all that much better these days, and, although there is anxiety, there is no panic. There is no sense that if they don’t push Harper off the Peace Tower right now, Justin Trudeau will become prime minister in October 2015. He may or may not win that election, but the Tories know time is on their side. Panic won’t help. They have time and the tools (lots of attack ads) to right the ship.
Alberta’s PCs have even more time, until spring 2016 before they have to face the electorate. When they do, it will be with a new leader — a male, surely. Ironically, they will be up against a Wildrose party under the leadership of, yes, a woman, Danielle Smith. Unless the old boys in Wildrose get to her first.
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens, an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail, teaches political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph. His column appears every Monday in Waterloo Region Record and Guelph Mercury. He welcomes comments at [email protected]
Image: wikimedia commons
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