Don't Misunderestimate Him

Joe has a good point:

They also didn’t understand his toughness and character — as shown so well in the charity boxing match where people were making fun of him and in the end ate their words when he knocked out Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau.

It was the Liberals who had the last laugh on that one.

Those who have bet against him have been mistaken. And it will be a mistake to try to take him down with public media campaigns like they were so successful with former Liberal leaders.

The more I read Right-wing reaction to the Trudeau announcement, the more I am reminded of another heavily discounted politician with a famous surname: George W Bush. 

The comparison is not quite so astonishing. The American Left regarded "Dubya" as an under qualified buffoon who landed in the White House by a combination of pedigree, dumb luck and judicial tampering. The running gag during the Bush the Younger years was that the President of the United States was a blithering idiot. It was certainly true that while an intelligent, patriotic and principled man (his principles though not mine) his tongue and the English language were uneasy bedfellows. 

The Canadian Right regards Justin Trudeau as an under qualified buffoon who will likely win the Liberal leadership by a combination of pedigree, dumb luck and media tampering. The running gag so far has been that the Member for Papineau is a histrionic idiot. Come 2015 the Son and Heir will be ground into a fine powder by Messieurs Harper and Mulcair. The adults taking an overweening child to the woodshed.

Which is exactly what the American Left believed in 2000 and 2004 about the younger Bush. This guy is way too dumb to beat us. Then he beat them twice. It is understood that while Dubya was assumed to be dumb, he actually wasn't. Trudeau is assumed to be dumb and probably is. A bit more tenacious and clever than we first assumed, but by his own admission not in his father's class. The problem for us is that he doesn't have to work too hard to beat expectations.

We should not be reassured. The Father's failure was not due to a lack of brains but a lack of good ideas. The sharpest minds can just as easily fail going down the wrong path. Even an individual of modest abilities can be quite successful through hard work, decency and dedication. His resume could be written on the back of a matchbook, but it seems clear that Justin is hard working, dedicated and possessed, at least at a personal level, of a decency that is often lacking in the political class. Yeah, he ain't Einstein but that doesn't mean he should be wearing a dunce's cap.

To put it crudely: He might be dumb, but is he dumb enough to lose a general election? Or two or three in a row? As he ascends to the Liberal leadership, a not so wonderful prize as it once was, the discipline of power might begin to assert itself. Professional advisers will be tugging firmly at his shirtsleeve when the rhetoric gets a little too airy or the performance a little too melodramatic. Justin Trudeau is running for the leadership of the Liberal Party, he will be reminded, not to be William Shatner's understudy.

Focused, disciplined and with the charisma on full blast he can be threat. Not a fatal threat but a threat. There are about a dozen ridings in and around Toronto that the Tories captured in 2011 that could, quite easily if the winds are blowing leftward, switch back to the Liberals. That name still carries a certain magic. Not what it was but he can still pack 'em in at the church basements and community centers. In politics that matters.

Sooner or later the Empty Suits do get their comeuppance. For the One it occurred last Wednesday when, as if to prove that God exists and is very fond of Mormons, Mitt Romney utterly shellacked his opponent. It was a thing of beauty. The victory not only in the clear strength of the mastermind of Bain Capital, but in the weakness of the alleged greatest orator of his generation. Obama's style of speaking is grandiloquent. The content was always over wrought and pedestrian. The man has spent the whole of his political life saying nothing and doing less. Even at the game of politics the details stuff is left to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, hardcore Leftists but professional pols.

Justin Trudeau, whatever his virtues, is an empty suit. Let's hope it doesn't take Canadian voters four years to discover that fact. Our job is is make sure they do it as soon as possible.

 

Comments

[Ray K.]

Seems that boxing match was a huge career move. Also, what gives you the sense of personal decency? Was it his preference for the scatological over the obscene?

[nomdeblog]

My Liberal friends who have witnessed firsthand the aura of Justin Trudeau enter a room at say a fund raising gathering , i.e. they are totally in the tank with the magic; yet they are also very worried this same aura will propel Justin to the top of the Liberal heap when he is not yet ready. Realistically, at 41, he is already too old to ever glean enough real world experience to run a company let alone the world’s 7th largest economy.

The problem the Liberals have is the same as the Democrats. They run on emotion and need a messiah to part the seas or lower the oceans like Obama said he would. Instead of defining themselves by policy and then finding a leader to sell those policies they approach it backwards. Find a messiah to sell whichever way the wind is blowing.

The shortest way to describe this phenomenon is:

Liberals fall in love with their leader, because they want to be led.
Conservatives reluctantly fall somewhat in line with their leader, because they really don’t want to be led in the first place.

[Dennis]

Justin Trudeau reminds me of Belinda Stronach: possessed of good looks and great name recognition but in the end she didn't have an idea to call her own. Justin's speeches so far are long on fuzzy bromides and critically short on substance. I suspect this is the reason he is Liberal critic for Youth and Sports instead of Finance or Foreign Affairs.

Its as if the Liberal Party is just too lazy to focus on identifying the reasons why they have come to third place in Parliament, and working out a strategy to resurrect the party. It seems so much easier to just resurrect the Trudeau mystique instead.

[Cytotoxic]

Trudeau is more of a threat than you realize. He has a serious shot so long as Harper and Mulcair are both at it; the 'cynical' oldschool politicians people claim they don't want. This gives Trudeau a niche. The 'cool new post-partisan' BS niche. Simple solution: replace Harper.

"Conservatives reluctantly fall somewhat in line with their leader, because they really don’t want to be led in the first place."

Conservatives are by and large every bit as slavishly obedient to Harper as Dems are to Obama.

And Dubya really was stupid.