People who look at politics from the outside often focus on the stuff that they can see.
In looking at the pending changes in the provincial Liberal leadership, it's no surprise, therefore that reporters may sometimes focus on things like the supposed "bounce" in public opinion numbers that comes from a leadership fight or how a candidate might appear.
Craig Westcott and David Cochrane's comments this morning on CBC Radio by and large fall into the category of looking at what can be seen rather than looking beyond the substance.
Westcott, in particular, focused on the superficial, pointing to St. John's lawyer A.J. Baker as the brightest prospect to replace Roger Grimes. Westcott pointed to her aggressive style, her attractiveness and her profile as a way of drawing attention to the Liberal Party - likely from a media standpoint - and perhaps luring out the misogynistic comments from Conservatives that would give good copy.
What Westcott misses is the obvious in this case: Baker would make an excellent candidate. But there is nothing - absolutely nothing - in her background that would suggest she has the ability to tackle the real job of leading a political party, let alone leading the province.
He pointed, as many do, to finding someone to take on Danny Williams. This also focuses on the superficial - the "appearance" of a strong leader in the way that Latin American politics used to focus on the caudillo or strong-man around whom all rally. Much of our political history is told through an emphasis on individual leaders so there is an apparent justification for this approach. Unfortunately how the story gets told by people who, again by and large, see things from the outside, misses the details that tell the real story.
The easiest example to illustrate the genuine issue comes from Clyde Wells. Lured back into politics in 1987, Wells took two full years to rebuild the party. He and the team he brought worked on district organization, provincial organization, recruiting candidates, recruiting volunteers and amassing a war chest of cash to fight an election.
Even with a party that was tottering and tired, the 1989 election was not an easy fight. But the party won; Wells himself lost his bid for a seat. It was really not until several years after the 1989 election that people started to focus on him individually as opposed to the Liberal party and the whole cabinet. That shift in focus was driven by the media looking for a convenient carrier of their explanations - not on how the party actually ran or what won the 1989 election.
When Wells left politics in 1996, he left as well a party that was well-organized with strong grass-roots district organization. Cash was in good shape and there was a stable of strong ministers, strong caucus members and others ready to come forward as candidates.
By 1999, his successor Brian Tobin - the classic charming caudillo - led a party that was showing signs of wear. The district organizations were weaker, in particular and there was growing alienation borne of Tobin's style. Fully 18 seats were contests that should never have been and six were set to go Tory. In the end, Tobin lost three seats in areas where the party out to have been invincible, but more importantly, the party had shifted its strategic messages no fewer than three times during the campaign to counteract its own evident strategic mistakes. Tobin's political philosophy, characterized by one wag as "an announcement a week and a good poll", was obviously not good enough.
Tobin's successor emerged from a leadership convention nominally in charge but in fact bearing the burden left by Tobin's lack of organizational ability. The party was heavily in debt. John Efford's candidacy revealed the depth of the alienation in the rank and file at the caudillo approach. The party was largely worn down if not worn out by the evidence on flash over substance.
Flip across to the Tories in the same time frame and you see some of the same challenges. But here's one notable difference. At some point, the Tories started focusing on the sinews of the party. Ed Byrne's 1999 campaign against Tobin was a set piece of organization that ran as smoothly as these things can. Undecided voters - abnormally high right up to the debate - broke immediately after the debate and went, surprisingly to the Tories.
Whatever the Conservatives accomplished in 2003 had as much to do with the grunt-work of organization as it did anything else. When Danny Williams' campaign arrived it could slide in on top of a well-laid foundation. The results are well known.
In picking a new leader, the Liberal Party needs to look at more than the superficial. Reporters and other commentators would do well to follow the same approach, if nor no other reason than to give more insightful coverage to their audience.
The new leader will have to be an accomplished organizer who is able to re-build the party from the most basic levels. He or she must be able to create a team that can fight and hopefully win an election. The leader must have the depth to sweep away any outmoded ideas and forge a party which is genuinely a government-in-waiting.
The legacy of Tobinism is all around, best exemplified by those who believe - like Tobin minister Chuck Furey - that the convention should be as late as possible so that a "bounce" out of the convention would propel through the polls. Political success seldom, if ever, works that way in practice .
Political success cannot be pulled at the last minute from some bodily orifice. It comes from hard work, sweat and substance by a dedicated group built around a proven, capable leader.
Those who believe in pulling it out at the last minute seem to forget that what normally comes from that orifice is, by definition, refuse and has a consistency which does not bounce so much as splat in an ugly mess.
