Where have the good leaders gone?

By GERRY WARNER
Cranbrook Daily Townsman
Aug. 24, 2007
Have you noticed the strange affliction besetting Canadian and American political leaders these days? What's that you say? Easy. The public doesn't like them anymore.
Let's go stateside first. George Bush is in virtual free fall. His polling numbers are in the low 30 per cent range -- about the lowest of any president in 100 years -- and the only supporters he has left are the hard-core social conservatives and the religious right. Even Republicans are abandoning him like rats from the proverbial sinking ship, including King Rat himself -- Karl Rove -- who departed a week ago "to spend more time with his family.
"What codswallop!
Anytime a politician claims to have rediscovered his family you know what's really going on is he can no longer stomach politics or the politician he's working for. Rove knows that not only is Bush going down, but the Republican party is going down with him and there will be no job for him and his Machiavellian skills in a Democratic oval office. But wait! It may not be quite that simple because the front-runner in the Democratic race is hated by almost as many Americans as the unlamented George W. I'm talking about Hillary, of course, the most publicly-cuckolded politician in modern political history and the most polarizing figure in American politics with the possible exception of the man that ordered American troops into Iraq.
Perhaps as a Canadian, I can't appreciate some of the subtler nuances of American politics. But having said that, I still have the gut feeling that if Hillary had done what most honest women would have done when Bill was philandering around with Monica -- and who knows how many other women -- and dumped him, she might be one of the most popular women in American politics today. Instead, Hillary just ramped up the flow of ice water in her veins and stuck it out. Stuck it out because of her overarching political ambition. She needed Bill Clinton to kick-start her own political career and she was prepared to put up with anything to do that, including public humiliation.
People with that much naked ambition are scary. Hillary Rodham Clinton scares people. She might scare them so much they'll vote Republican. And that's scary.
And if the Democrats wisely pass over Hillary as their candidate they might choose the current runnerup, Barack Obama, the man who said he wanted to talk to the "president" of Canada. Hmm. Anyone for Ralph Nader? And what about former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the Republican front-runner? He's for gay marriage and abortion, which might play well in Canada but will sink like a rock in Peoria and many other parts of the fundamentalist Christian heartland in good ol' Imperial America. And if not Giuliani, who? Senator John McCain who's support for the Iraq war is causing him to self-destruct even faster than Bush. Mitt Romney, whose Mormon religion doesn't wash with many of the more conventionally faithful. Dr. Ron Paul, one of seven Republican congressmen who voted against the Iraq war and opposes the Patriot Act and is considered a "paleoconservative" and a libertarian. He sounds too good to be true.
But lest we get too sanctimonious about the state of American politics, what about the Great White North? As a much-maligned former American president was fond of saying, "let me make this perfectly clear;" Stephen Harper will never lead a majority government in Canada. I won't repeat myself because it's simply not going to happen. Ironically Harper's biggest problem is not his politics. It's his personality. Compared to Harper, icewater Hillary is a positive social butterfly, brimming with warmth and good-will . Harper, who eats nails for breakfast, likes to parade around in a silly military vest when he's around his good buddy George Bush or when he makes one of his "secret"P.R. flights to Kandihar to encourage more good Canadian boys to die for the futile cause of Afghanistan democracy. He runs his government like a military machine. He confides primarily with himself. He keeps all his ministers on a short leash because he doesn't trust anyone and his anal-retentive, control-freak personality offends almost everybody.
And here's one more prediction. Harper's clever bit of sophistry calling Quebec "a nation within a united Canada" will not win him one seat in La Belle Province next time out. As the death toll of Van Doos mounts almost daily, Harper's stature in Quebec is sinking like a rock and rightly so.
However, I must admit Stephane Dion and Jack Layton aren't exactly setting the country on fire either.
Which leads us back to the beginning.Where have all the good political leaders gone?

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