Leaders should know when they approach their best-before date.
by Geoffrey Stevens
There’s a hypothesis among people who dabble in politics that the average political leader has a half-life of about six years — “half-life” being a term borrowed from science to describe a process of gradual or exponential decay.
Applied to politics, the half-life hypothesis means leaders have six years to make their mark and reach (or not) their goals. At the six-year mark, they need to start tidying up their files and worry about their legacy, while their supporters plot succession scenarios.
In North America, where four-year terms are the norm, this means a leader has one full term and the first part of a second to accomplish the heavy lifting. After that, they should prepare an exit strategy before their party or the electorate does it for them.
Barack Obama, having won a second term, has a couple of years to go before he needs to hire a biographer/historian. Under adverse economic circumstances and gridlock in Congress, he accomplished a great deal in his first term.
In Canada, Stephen Harper, after six years in 24 Sussex, has reached his political half-life. Although he may not acknowledge it, his productive political years are behind him.
His Affordable Health Care Act (aka Obamacare) is now law and will go into full effect in 2014. He took on the big financial institutions and reformed Wall Street. He saved the American auto industry (from itself, largely). He ended George W Bush’s war in Iraq and initiated an end to the one in Afghanistan.
His second-term challenge to use his election momentum to cow the Republicans long enough to revive the economy and create millions of needed jobs. He has only until the fall of 2014, when the congressional mid-term elections will signal the start of a new political cycle — the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. At that point, his political influence dissipates as he fades into a lame duckland.
In Canada, Stephen Harper, after six years in 24 Sussex, has reached his political half-life. Although he may not acknowledge it, his productive political years are behind him. His iron control of cabinet and caucus may enable him to delay the inevitable for another year or so, but the beginning of the end is in sight.
Ambitious Conservatives are restive, especially those on right. Some are starting to gravitate to Jason Kenny, the social conservative and minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism; if Canada had a Tea Party, Kenny would probably be its flag bearer.
After Harper, the Conservative party could descend into the fratricidal combat that cost the Republicans the election when they nominated Mitt Romney, who tried to stand for everything and ended up standing for nothing.
Dalton McGuinty stayed well beyond his best-before date and left the party barely clinging to power.
In Ontario, Dalton McGuinty failed to appreciate that he had a half-life as premier. He was first elected in 2003 and re-elected in 2007. His problems mounted in his second term, as scandals began to outweigh accomplishments. He should have retired instead of seeking a third term. If he had resigned in late 2010 or early 2011, the Liberals could have chosen a new leader to lead them into the election of October 2011. Had they chosen wisely (though there is no guarantee of that), they would, I suspect, have won another majority.
Instead, McGuinty stayed well beyond his best-before date and left the party barely clinging to power. Now the Ontario Liberals seem to be heading on the same trajectory as their federal brethren: too long in power; too many scandals; a surfeit of arrogance; out of touch with the populace; reduced to a minority; then out of office; and, finally, third-party status.
Given that trajectory, it’s no wonder none of the powerful figures of the McGuinty administration, having witnessed decline from within, wants the leadership, leaving the contest to second-tier candidates. The leading one at the moment is Sandra Pupatello, a former minister, who revealed her respect for parliamentary democracy when she said she would keep the Legislature prorogued after she becomes leader — and would not let it sit again until she wins a by-election (whenever that might be).
Perhaps she stole pages from Stephen Harper’s playbook.
About Geoffrey Stevens
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens, an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail, teaches political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph. He welcomes comments at the address below. This article appeared in the Waterloo Region Record and the Guelph Mercury.
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