Election Apathy

There were a couple of excellent articles in the Globe and Mail recently on the topic of federal political leadership that I believe hit the bull's eye. One was by Rick Mercer on the three main party leaders, and the other by Rex Murphy on Ignatieff. I refer you to those articles -- both are enjoyable reads -- rather than repeat their messages here. It suffices for my purpose in this post to say that we have a problem with the party leaders: the angry guy, the smiling man, and the empty suit.

What I do want to discuss is why it is that the parties elected these men to be their leaders. Cynicism should not distract us since by and large the power brokers in all these parties -- the NDP, Liberals and Conservatives -- are intelligent and thoughtful. Yet the leaders these parties chose are mostly lacking good leadership qualities.

While founded on political ideals, political parties are keenly aware that the path to power is to get elected (duh!). That means they must appeal to a large swath of the electorate (that's us), or at least the ones who bother to go to the polls; those who don't take the trouble to vote can be safely ignored by the party election machines. Since the media and the electorate focus almost exclusively on the leaders, not the local candidates, the parties first and foremost choose leaders they believe can bring in the vote. This is a natural result of our celebrity adoring culture. Besides, we all know that when it comes to political decision time in Parliament, MPs are little more than robot slaves who vote exactly as the leader orders. This only reinforces the focus on the party leaders.

Thus we have a political culture where marketing to the masses takes precedence over policies. The leaders are embodiments of their parties' advertising campaigns, just as with colourful corporate logos, jingles and product hype ("new and improved!"; "whiter teeth!"; "enjoy the cool taste!"). We should be offended by how we're being pandered to, but we're not. Yes, if someone asks, you're sure to claim you're tired of politics and politicians, you wish they'd focus on the important issues of the day, or that, no, you are not swayed by attack ads. Yet our votes are too often driven by party advertising and the image of the leader. Careful polling shows that we respond positively to lies and innuendo and negatively to someone who fidgits and sweats a bit too much in the heat and glare of camera lighting, or simply has a strong accent in one of the official languages. So then, just where is the problem: them or us?

We can try to weasel out of this charge by claiming that we often must choose from among the sorry lot the parties give us. When we do accidentally get a leader who is honest (Kim Campbell) or has a radical vision (Stephane Dion) they are eviscerated. The parties don't like losing, so they learn from their "mistakes" and give us what we seem to want. That's why we have Harper, Layton and Ignatieff, and in the next election that's the group we'll have to choose from for our next Prime Minister. I am not looking forward to it.