Does Christy Clark lack the intellectual gravitas to be premier?February 16, 2012

Does Christy Clark lack the intellectual gravitas to be premier?

Sometimes, a picture is all you need to tell a story.

By Charlie Smith, February 16, 2012

This week, the Vancouver Sun carried an article by retired senior bureaucrat Bob Plecas under the headline: "A winning game plan for Clark".

The piece urged B.C. Liberal premier Christy Clark to take a right-wing turn if she wants to stay in power. The accompanying photograph showed her sitting beside Prime Minister Stephen Harper at her son's hockey game, with the two of them sharing a somewhat creepy, adoring look at each other.

I would suggest that images like this are one of the reasons why Clark is in such serious trouble with voters.

After winning the B.C. Liberal leadership a year ago, Clark had an opportunity to succeed. All she had to do was to model herself on some of the most successful female politicians in the world.

The one thing they all share is a certain level of gravitas.

That's especially important for female government leaders, who risk being dismissed more easily than their male colleagues because of sexism.

Hillary Clinton's serious demeanour and obvious intellect almost won her the U.S. presidency. Israel's Golda Meir was elected prime minister because she was tough, smart, and serious.

Britain's Margaret Thatcher caused untold havoc during her time as prime minister, but nobody questioned her spine and serious intention to change her country. India's Indira Gandhi was no dummy, and she was similarly feared and respected.

Female politicians are at an inherent disadvantage once they become party leaders. It's a sad fact of life that they aren't given the benefit of the doubt nearly as often as male politicians, so they have to work even harder to demonstrate that they're serious and smart enough to be trusted with the reins of power.

That may explain why the most successful female government leaders sometimes come across as more austere and dignified than their male counterparts.

Just look at Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for advancing women's equality and promoting nonviolence.

Australian prime minister Julia Gillard is a lawyer, policy wonk, and even a bit of a punctuation freak. You would never hear her dropping the "g" like Clark does to prove she's one of the regular folks.

Alberta's new premier Alison Redford is a good example of this type of female government leader in Canada. She's riding high in the polls in her province, because she's seen as serious about the job, and not prone to indulging in gimmicks to get voters' attention.

Clark, on the other hand, thought that she could succeed with gimmicks, starting with her campaign slogan, which purported to put families first on her agenda.

Since then, Clark eagerly donned jerseys of the local sports teams (no dignity there—can you imagine Thatcher, Johnson-Sirleaf, or Gandhi doing that?), called for televised trials of Stanley Cup rioters, offered up a goofy constitutional proposal, performed the equivalent of a throne speech on CKNW Radio, and milked her kid's hockey game for public-relations purposes with the prime minister in tow.

At other times, Clark has hid behind spin doctors. And she appears to be imploding politically as her office has became a revolving door of advisers and fixers.

Now, Clark's biggest challenge is convincing voters that she has sufficient intellectual firepower and gravitas to be premier of the province. My guess is that large segments of the public have already written her off as a bit of a flake. That doesn't bode well for the future of the B.C. Liberals.

Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter at twitter.com/csmithstraight.