My grandfather used to say that politicians were all fine and good until they got elected but once they got into power they immediately turned into bums.
The people seem to be in a firing mood when it comes to governments and in a cynical mood when it comes to politicians. Political parties that are too long in government become so associated with being “bums” that it gets harder and harder to overcome bad reputations garnered while in power. Even so-called reformers trumpeting a hard line and good intentions fall prey to the pull of power.
Witness Preston Manning’s famous flop on Stornoway as covered the Alberta Report in 1997:
Otta-washed? (Preston) Manning accepts Stornoway and rejects caucus democracy.
When Reform Party leader Preston Manning decided last month to move into Stornoway, the official residence of the opposition leader, he solved one problem but only highlighted another. Mr. Manning’s flipflop on Stornoway is seen by many Reformers as another example of a leader whose aloofness from his caucus leads the party into public embarrassment. We now live in an age where politicians seem to think they can simply justify any hypocricy or misdeed by merely referencing the misdeeds of their predecessors and opponents in government. Not only do our politicians live in glass houses, they have thrown so many rocks at each other the house is shattered and broken seemingly beyond repair.
A political party with no record as a government might be in a better position to benefit from the public mood of dissatisfaction, having no baggage or broken promises to weight them down. The credibility gap is much less and their opponents can only shriek about what such a party might do rather than what they are likely to do according to their past history. A lack of experience would not necessarily be seen as a negative as far as the expectation of “turning into bums” would go. Then you get a “what the hell, how much worse could they be” vibe happening amongst the electorate as was the case in the recent Alberta election. The governing PC party was able to rebound to the “better the devil you know” effect when loose lips within the Wildrose showed voters how just how much worse things might be if they were elected.
The biggest challenge facing any political party with a long history in government that wants to reclaim the public trust, is finding a way to bridge the deep credibility gap between what politicians promise and how they govern. It will take much more than just singing the same tune in a different style to convince voters that a game changer has occurred.
