Don't eat, and ditch those funny hats

Those are some of the basic rules for politicians when photographers are lurking about

Canada's political history is rife, however, with examples of politicians caught looking foolish

By JAMES TRAVERS, National Affairs Columnist, Toronto Star, July 23, 2005

Seen from the public podium, photographers are a lowly, dangerous form of life. Politicians are savaged by writers and lampooned by cartoonists, but it's photographers they fear.

So they should. Careers that take decades to build can tumble down in a single, unguarded moment captured on the forever of film.

It's a simple game played well by talented, determined men and women who take pride and pleasure in their work. Wherever politicians go, whatever they do, there is a photographer recording bits of history and ready to expose the powerful for what they are and what they are not.

When it happens, the results are usually hilarious, often revealing and, more often than not, politically damaging.

It happened to Stephen Harper earlier this month at the Calgary Stampede and the timing couldn't have been worse. A country already smirking at the ludicrous plan to remake a nerd into the guy next door was suddenly confronted by the spectre of a very Conservative leader wearing a too-tight leather vest, a dopey cowboy hat and looking all the world like one of the sexually ambivalent Village People. No, definitely not good.

If misery loves company, Harper is a late arrival at an orgy. Our political history is littered with the bodies of those with bad luck, timing or judgment.

Even Harper's youthful, often-reconstituted party has its own casualty. A sleek, buffed-up Stockwell Day made quite the splash arriving at a news conference on a Sea-Doo in, yikes, a rubber suit. Day's bubble burst and subsequent gaffes mercifully pushed his inflated ambition below the waves.

A similar, if sadder, fate befell the best prime minister Canada never had. On May 30, 1974, the angular and, at least in this famous photo, awkward Robert Stanfield fumbled a football. Canadian Press photographer Doug Ball's camera caught what the Tory leader did not and the odious comparison with the svelte, athletic and camera-savvy Pierre Trudeau pushed Stanfield and a hapless party over the electoral brink.

Stanfield handled it all rather well. He turned his howling wit on the unfortunate relationship with Ball and, more courageous still, never complained that the stories pictures tell aren't always true.

In his case, most were not. Stanfield caught more footballs than he dropped and was just as badly served by another iconic snapshot of him eating a banana. Cruelly, it made a monkey of a man whose intellect contributed to public life long after he retreated from in an image war he couldn't win.

Others have certainly fared better. By the time Jean Chrétien finally retired after 40 years in increasingly high office, libraries bulged with photos that might well have done him more harm.

In one memorable - and misleading - shot, Kid Shawinigan lies sprawled on a basketball court, the victim of street shoes and misplaced enthusiasm for an impromptu game. Its unmistakeable message was that Chrétien was a klutz when he was arguably the most fit and athletically able Liberal leader since Trudeau.

Another photograph, shot in Bosnia in 1994, is more subtly funny and much more profound. There, the lens finds Chrétien wearing a United Nation's blue peacekeepers helmet - backwards.

It should have been devastating. No other photo so neatly frames a leader dismissed in the previous election as yesterday's man and a prime minister serenely content with steep military decline. But Chrétien was still enjoying an electoral honeymoon, public attention was far away from the armed forces and the moment became a one-day wonder.

That doesn't surprise Jim Maclean, president of Toronto-based Tactical Advice/Strategic Communications. Maclean, who worked with Dalton McGuinty at Queen's Park and John Tory in the Toronto mayoral campaign, says the most powerful and potentially damaging photos are those that, first, reflect and, then, magnify public perceptions.

"Wearing something silly isn't in itself going to kill you," he says. "It only reinforces what's already out there, but if what's out there isn't good, you have a problem."

That helps explains how one politician escapes the camera unscathed while another is badly scarred.

Most Canadians wouldn't be caught dead in the cape and hat Trudeau flaunted at the 1970 Grey Cup game and yet they accepted both as part of a flamboyant style that included pirouetting behind the Queen and canoeing in buckskin. But Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe has never quite shaken the earnest fool image that clung to him after his 1997 tour of a cheese factory wearing a hairnet.

It also explains Harper's problem. Compounding the errors of a spring parliamentary session, Conservatives foolishly telegraphed that their struggling leader would hit the summer barbecue circuit hoping to lose his personal political baggage. In their tactical dreams, Conservatives saw Stephen, a distant and wonkish policrat, becoming the sweetly embraceable Steve.

That was never likely and was always certain to be a hard sell. It also ignores the only rules protecting politicians from photographers.

Unless you are as cool and assured as Trudeau, Rule One is never, ever, put anything on your head or in your mouth when cameras are clicking.

Rule Two is to know your political persona and project it simply, clearly and consistently.

Harper will never become prime minister cross-dressing as a cowboy. He is a serious, not wildly warm politician still trying to prove that he and his party are ready to govern.

If a role model is needed, those around him should look to Joe Clark, not to the wardrobe department. Poorly matched against Trudeau, savaged by writers, lampooned by cartoonists and once caught by photographers riding a bull, Clark still managed to win an election.

Like Clark, Harper knows who he is and even manages to joke about it. But a summer wasted toying with his image should still teach him a few things.

Anyone who aspires to be prime minister must be comfortable in their skin, trust their political instincts and, most of all, fear photographers.

Stakes High in Ontario Election Debate

Leaders of Ontario’s three major political parties go into intense rehearsals next weekend for the most critical performance of their political careers… “There are sometimes defining moments in TV debates,” said Liberal strategist Jim Maclean, “and sometimes there aren’t. But they occur at a point in the campaign where Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch say ‘oh yeah, there’s an election in a couple of weeks we’d better decide what we’re going to do.’ So they are a watershed for the great majority of the public who, unlike journalists and political hacks, tune in late.”

…Leaders’ performances during a debate can be less important than media reaction afterwards. Most voters tend to form their opinions after watching news clips and listening to the conventional wisdom of pundits…Mr. Maclean, who helped prepare Ontario Liberal Leader Lynn McLeod for a TV debate during the 1995 provincial election, recalled the day-after rave reviews his candidate got after her confrontations with ultimately victorious Mr. Harris. “I watched it at home,” he said, “and I doubted she had won. I had a little focus group, including my parents who were in their 70s, and were not planning to vote Tory. And they said, ‘well, Mr. Harris got his points across.’

In fact, the debate marked the beginning of the end of the Liberal chances in 1995. Harris’s performance during the debate was very focused.” Mr. Maclean, who is not involved with the McGuinty TV preparations, said the Liberal leader knows he performed badly against Mr. Harris in 1999. “I have no doubt Dalton will do better,” he said. “He has come a long way since the last election. But wasn’t that he did anything wrong. He didn’t get sideswiped like Turner did in 1984, but he didn’t fire back when he should have. Harris has this dismissive attitude, turning the shoulders away from Dalton and then Hampton weighed in and they ganged up on Dalton. The numbers dropped horribly.”

But Mr. Eves has to prove why he deserves to be elected, added Mr. Maclean, and he won’t get away with a negative approach during the debate. “I don’t think Ernie is going to have the luxury of pooping on Dalton for an hour and a half,” he said. “He needs some positive positions and to give some vision of what life will be like in Ontario under Ernie Eves.”

-National Post, September 14, 2003-

John Tory Campaign Lands PR Heavyweight

The mayoral campaign of ex-Cable Guy John Tory is trumpeting the arrival in its camp of Jim Maclean as director of communications…Maclean is a great catch for a team already chock full of seasoned political advisers and schemers and also brings along long-time Liberal ties - a plus for a candidate branded from birth with the Tory label.

-Toronto Star, July 7, 2003-

Key McGuinty Man Leaves Liberals

Dalton McGuinty’s communications director is resigning from the Liberal leader’s office…Jim Maclean, who has spent the past two years helping Mr. McGuinty move from an also-ran in the 1999 election to potentially the next Ontario premier, yesterday announced he is departing…Mr. McGuinty said he accepted the resignation “with sadness and regret” and praised his communications director for his efforts….

While a successor has not yet been named, he leaves the office in better shape than he found it. He joined Mr. McGuinty just after the 1999 vote, which saw the Liberals lose a third consecutive provincial election, squandering a poll lead shortly before the election was called. An aggressive strategist, Mr. Maclean improved the Liberal leader’s communications by turning the media office into an election-style war room. His proactive style has contributed to the Liberals’ surging fortunes.

Three weeks ago, Mr. McGuinty’s team toppled the Conservatives in the key Vaughan-King-Aurora by-election. That surprise win, said Mr. Maclean, makes him feel he is leaving on a high note - and has him looking forward to the next general election. “I’ll be volunteering,” he said.

-National Post, July 18, 2001

Lobbyists in position for 2003

Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty lost his own director of communications, Jim Maclean, who joined the leader’s office after the 1999 campaign to shake things up and put a winning team in place for the next campaign.

Maclean, who is credited with not only raising McGuinty’s profile but also being lightning-quick when it came to responding to every government announcement, felt he had achieved his goal.

It was Maclean who, within two days of the government announcing its private school tax credit, dug up letters written by both Harris and Education Minister Janet Ecker denouncing the idea of funding private religious education.

Three weeks ago, he handed McGuinty a bottle of single malt whiskey and his resignation, along with a vow to return for the next election.

- Toronto Star, Aug. 4, 2001

Liberals Find Some Direction

Forget about boring opposition work.

The Liberals are training their sights squarely on the next provincial election. This time it isn’t just target practice. They are aiming for the big prize, even if it isn’t in season for another four years.

Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty started preparing this week by bagging a new communications director. James Maclean, who spent the last seven years as communications honcho at the stuffy College of Physicians and Surgeons, takes over in McGuinty’s office next month.

Maclean’s recruitment shows that McGuinty has finally realized he can’t get the job done by surrounding himself with a bunch of eager beavers whose combined life experiences could fit on the back of a postage stamp.

Maclean has been in the journalism and public relations business for 25 years. He has worked in New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ottawa and Toronto. He has been a radio reporter, bureau chief, news director, political adviser, vice-president and entrepreneur. He is a husband, father, land-owner, car buff. He’s been around.

Maclean is a man who will get things done, in much the same way as the loyalists who handle Premier Mike Harris. These are the kinds of people who don’t swerve when they see a rodent crossing the highway. They are focussed on a destination, and therefore ignore or drive over distractions. Roadkill isn’t a crisis. It’s part of the routine.

And so, Maclean will be watched very closely. Not by the Liberal caucus, but by the Conservative braintrust. For the last four years, they’ve had an easy time of it. The special interest groups and high-powered unions have been more troublesome than the Official Opposition. And so, the Tories have played the Grits like a 20-pound tomcat fiddling with a blind, three-legged mouse.

Those days are over. Now, it’ll be a fair fight.

-Jeff Harder column on Canoe.com, July, 9, 1999