Lessons from the south
Hi l l ar y Clinton, it has been noted, is a pragmatic technocrat and policy wonk for whom the false bonhomie of politics is as tough as it has always been easy for her more naturally charismatic, extroverted husband, former president Bill “Bubba” Clinton.
Get set for just her blend of qualities — call it anti-flash, quiet competence, a capacity for unsung hard work — to take centre stage in candidate selection for the foreseeable future, not just in the United States but everywhere. Donald Trump, the ostensible silver- backed gorilla and alpha male, has poisoned the well for uncon- ventional “outsider” candidates worldwide. He is the ultimate object lesson to political parties seeking flash over substance and experience.
This includes Canadian Conservative leadership prospect Kevin O’Leary, who is nothing like Trump in important ways, but has enough in common with him to get burnt crispy in the blast radius of his exploding sun. The venture capitalist and star of ABC’s Shark Tank reality show has been noncommittal about whether he will seek the Conservative leadership, though polls have indicated he is popular with the party rank and file. He is expected to finalize a decision next month.
Prediction: look for O’Leary to remain safely in TV land, piling up cash, while throwing his weight behind an established politician. He would be mad to do otherwise, given the catastrophes Trump and another famously loose- lipped maverick, Britain’s Boris Johnson, have visited on their constituencies, and their reputations, this year.
The latter played a seminal role in levering the U.K. into Brexit, a breathtakingly stupid backward turn that has hammered the British pound to historic lows and may lead to the dismantling of Europe and the U. K. both. Trump, for his part, has ripped the party of Rea- gan, Eisenhower, Colin Powell and the Bushes down to the studs in the space of six months.
Late Wednesday, Trump is reported to have declared “all- out war” on his opponents and the media after multiple accounts of his having groped or forcibly kissed women. The first salvo in this apocalyptic conflict- to-end all- conflicts was a letter to The New York Times, threatening a lawsuit for defamation, failing a retraction.
There will be no retraction. These claims are on the record, with names attached. There is voluminous detail. There are multiple corroborating sources and similar claims in other publications. And there are Trump’s own words, caught on a 2005 video, in which he boasts that, being a star, he can “do anything” he likes to women, including “grab ’em by the pussy.”
In the unlikely event any of this winds up in a civil court, following the required legal filings, it will be a matter of whom the judge or jury chooses to believe. By then this presidential campaign will be a bad memory, the Clintons back in the White House and Trump a regu- lar on alt- right talk radio or retired in sulky splendour to his penthouse. The bigger question — whether the Republican party itself can bounce back, or whether the chasms Trump has opened cause it to crack into pieces, remains to be seen.
Among the biggest takeaways, to get back to candidate selection, is that Trump’s personal history was never properly investigated — clearly — either by the party, or by his opponents’ campaigns in the primaries. Nor was he ever subjected to the klieg lights of high-stakes, high-level investigative media scrutiny, until this year. It’s highly unlikely anything like this degree of October surprise, in Hillary Clinton’s favour, would have occurred with, for example, Jeb Bush or John Kasich as the GOP nominee. Lowenergy they may be. They’re also established politicians with track records in state politics.
To bring it back to Canada: Conservatives have been casting about for a leader with the necessary pizzazz to counter Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s glam and star power. Hence, the immediate appeal — until, perhaps, this week — of an O’Leary, who “doesn’t sound” l i ke a politician, knows his way around Twitter and gleefully courts controversy, even to the point of blasting the Conservatives themselves for being “losers.” Sound familiar? Now let the shudder run down the party’s collective spine. And l et the search for a polar opposite to Trump — a leader who is pragmatic, sensible, with a long track record of competence — begin.
Tony Clement, the former treasury board minister, had been considered a possible front- runner, based on his long record in senior cabinet posts in Ottawa and at Queen’s Park. He pulled out Wednesday, citing a lack of funds. His difficulty, as I have heard from some Conservatives, is that he looked and sounded too much the conventional, veteran career politician. He’s been around forever.
If that’s true, Clement may have made his move a month too soon. There are much worse things in politics, Trump has made spectacularly clear, than an excess of convention and a few laps around the track.
TRUMP HAS POISONED THE WELL FOR “OUTSIDER” CANDIDATES.