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mysteries of politics
Jun. 24th, 2010 10:27 amSudden wrenching changes in a politician's popularity are sometimes explicable.
Richard Nixon was re-elected President of the United States in a sweeping victory in 1972. Less than two years later, an equally sweeping spasm of disgust forced him to resign. I think we all know how and why that happened.
Margaret Thatcher won a fairly convincing third term as Prime Minister of the U.K. in 1987. Some three years later, her own party forced her to resign. That surprised a lot of people at the time, but the reasons were clear: an intra-party challenge had revealed that her support in the party, though wide, was unexpectedly thin and tentative, due to some controversial policies and worries about the prospects for the next election; and once that came out, her support crumbled.
Sometimes, though, these changes are harder for an outsider to understand. Coming in countries that get less attention in U.S. media, and whose news sources for domestic consumption assume knowledge of a lot of background that the outsider may not have been following, they come across as bewildering.
For instance, I've never quite understood why the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada crashed so spectacularly in the 1993 election. Yes, I know about the U.S. free trade agreement and the endless Quebec sovereignty negotiations and the revolt of the West, and this would have explained a simple election loss, but none of it seems to add up to such a crushing defeat for a party that had eked out victory in the two preceding elections, and still less to the visceral loathing of Brian Mulroney, its leader for most of that time, to the extent that one writer, asked to pen historical profiles of the Prime Ministers of Canada, submitted for Mulroney a mere "The less said about that, the better."
And now it's Australia. Two and a half years ago, the Labor Party finally returned to office after a long, miserable dry spell, and the last I heard they were doing fine. Now all of a sudden they're behind in the polls, and they react by hastily dumping Prime Minister Rudd and replacing him with his deputy.* What happened? Yes, there have been some policy cave-ins, but nothing I've read comes even remotely close to explaining this reaction.
*Now Australia, the U.K., and Canada have each had one woman Prime Minister. New Zealand has had two.
Richard Nixon was re-elected President of the United States in a sweeping victory in 1972. Less than two years later, an equally sweeping spasm of disgust forced him to resign. I think we all know how and why that happened.
Margaret Thatcher won a fairly convincing third term as Prime Minister of the U.K. in 1987. Some three years later, her own party forced her to resign. That surprised a lot of people at the time, but the reasons were clear: an intra-party challenge had revealed that her support in the party, though wide, was unexpectedly thin and tentative, due to some controversial policies and worries about the prospects for the next election; and once that came out, her support crumbled.
Sometimes, though, these changes are harder for an outsider to understand. Coming in countries that get less attention in U.S. media, and whose news sources for domestic consumption assume knowledge of a lot of background that the outsider may not have been following, they come across as bewildering.
For instance, I've never quite understood why the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada crashed so spectacularly in the 1993 election. Yes, I know about the U.S. free trade agreement and the endless Quebec sovereignty negotiations and the revolt of the West, and this would have explained a simple election loss, but none of it seems to add up to such a crushing defeat for a party that had eked out victory in the two preceding elections, and still less to the visceral loathing of Brian Mulroney, its leader for most of that time, to the extent that one writer, asked to pen historical profiles of the Prime Ministers of Canada, submitted for Mulroney a mere "The less said about that, the better."
And now it's Australia. Two and a half years ago, the Labor Party finally returned to office after a long, miserable dry spell, and the last I heard they were doing fine. Now all of a sudden they're behind in the polls, and they react by hastily dumping Prime Minister Rudd and replacing him with his deputy.* What happened? Yes, there have been some policy cave-ins, but nothing I've read comes even remotely close to explaining this reaction.
*Now Australia, the U.K., and Canada have each had one woman Prime Minister. New Zealand has had two.
