The most interesting thing about the federal election — or more accurately, the only interesting thing — is watching the two men who want to lead this country trying to convince voters that they aren’t what they really are.
Take Stephen Harper (please). We all know him as a guy so controlling, Kim Jong-il would tell him to “chill, bro.” A guy who is in such command of his surroundings that he wills his hair into place. Stephen Harper is a lot of things — mean-spirited, doctrinaire, warm as a December wind — but what he is not is a nice guy. And yet, that is exactly the bill of goods the Tory ads are trying to sell.
Take Stéphane Dion (again, please). We all know him (or at least, what little we know of him) as a uninspiring academic, a compromise leader who was the distant third choice of his own party. We are talking about a guy so accustomed to formalities that in the school picture accompanying his bio on the Liberal website, he’s wearing a suit. And yet, the Grits are trying to make Dion look like a Trudeau-esque outdoorsman who likes nothing better than trudging though the snow, going fishing, and playing hockey.
Spare me.
The Conservatives are working hardest on Harper because he is profoundly unlikeable.
In the Tory ads, which air roughly every 10 minutes on every show on Canadian television, we see Harper talking about Canadian soldiers, talking about playing cards with his kids, talking about his love of the North. The problem is, he is not convincing as himself. Stephen Harper as a warm and loving family guy is terrible casting, like rap stars who make family comedies. (I’m looking at you, Ice Cube.) My favourite Tory commercial is the one where “average Canadians” — i.e., actors portraying “average Canadians” — extol Harper’s virtues. The commercial ends with a sweater-clad Harper looking into the camera, and ... smiling. It’s hilarious. A smile looks about as natural on Stephen Harper as a bustier on your grandma.
For me, Harper’s image was cemented by the famous photo taken shortly after he was elected prime minister in 2004, showing Harper taking his little Grade 4-aged son to school. But instead of the hug that the Tory handlers must have been hoping for, Harper shook his son’s hand. What — was he still campaigning? True, a hug might have been too much (my sons would have been mortified, even in Grade 4), but why not a gentle tousle of the hair, the universal father-son “I love you, but will not say it” gesture? No, Harper went with a handshake. To my mind, that picture cemented Stephen Harper’s reputation as the iceman of Canadian politics just as surely as former Tory leader Bob Stanfield’s famous football fumble photo in 1974, which pictured him as an awkward, non-athletic geek compared to Pierre Trudeau’s übercool athleticism.
Stéphane Dion faces a similar image challenge. When your name makes you sound like Céline Dion’s little sister, you’ve got problems right away. Dion comes across as a slightly absent-minded egghead. (Seriously ... his head is literally egg-shaped.) He looks like a guy whose idea of a good time is a glass of wine (one glass, no more), a roaring fireplace, and Volume 4 of the Encyclopedia Britannica. A nice guy for a university prof, but not the kind of guy you’d want to play hockey or go fishing with.
But wait! According to the Liberal website video, thisisdion.com, Dion is a freaking lumberjack. On the video, Dion says he “loves” the winter, and “loves” the snow, and “loves” snowshoeing with his dog, “loves” family time. He is even shown playing hockey! Okay, it’s ball hockey in a gym, and his team appears to come from central casting. (“Get me a cross-section of Canada, stat!”) But the point is that Dion is just an average Jacques who, just like everybody else, loves hockey and UN conferences on climate change.
The fact is, Dion and Harper are more alike than either would want to admit. They’re both academics with precious little in common with average Canadians. Both men are trying hard to convince Canadians they’re just like you and me. But you know what? I don’t want somebody like me; I want somebody a lot better than me. And I really don’t want a leader who is pretending to be somebody else.
With many Canadians infatuated with Barack Obama (Obamadoration, I call it), the battle between the robotic Harper and the spicy-as-rice-pudding Dion looks like a NFB documentary versus a Hollywood blockbuster, and all the commercials and and web videos in the world aren’t going to change that fact.
Oh, and Jack Layton? Used car salesman.
mauricetougas@live.com
