Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children… when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined.
– Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince (1512)
Does no one have a sense of humour any more? This is all part of politics.
I have no idea if Ralph Klein has ever read Machiavelli’s 16th-century guide on how to secure, justify and maintain political power. I doubt it, somehow. After all, our Ralph was never much for reading, was he?
Yet even as the fallout from last week’s vote of confidence – or non-confidence, depending on your point of view – in Premier Klein’s ongoing leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives continues, I can’t help thinking that the old Florentine’s words of wisdom still ring true half a millennium after they were written.
For in the end, it was down to his lack of political judgment. Klein’s, I mean. You can take your pick from any number of recent examples.
His flinging of a Liberal booklet on health policy at a 17-year-old legislature page last month was, NDP leader Brian Mason said, "far beyond anything that I have ever seen from a public official." Klein later apologized, sort of – "Frustration," he explained, "over health care" – but the damage was already done.
His declaration a couple of weeks later that he would resign in October 2007, a full 18 months from now, smacked a little too much of a monarch’s unilateral decision to abdicate on his or her own terms. All of a sudden, the happy epithet "King Ralph" seemed not so funny. Just what did he plan to achieve in those intervening months that he could not, with a little effort and will, do right now? What purpose was served by dragging out his retirement to Sinatra-like proportions? Or as the Moody Blues once sang, "Since you gotta go, you better go now, go now."
Twinned with this announcement was his order that any pretenders to the soon-to-be-vacated throne would have to resign any cabinet position currently held by June 1. "This is to avoid any perception of any conflicts or personal advantages that one might have as the minister," Klein explained.
Similarly, backbenchers hoping to run would have to declare their intention by the same date, so that they would not be appointed to any vacant ministerial job. Klein’s motive may have been to create a level playing field, but less charitably, it may also be viewed as an attempt to influence the contest for his own successor. A wiser man would have left the party to determine its own rules.
And then, finally, there was the head-to-head clash between Klein and Lyle Oberg late last month. Refusing to ask his constituency association in Brooks to support Klein in the leadership review, the Transportation and Infrastructure Minister was promptly stripped of his office and suspended indefintely from the party caucus.
"If I were the premier, I wouldn’t want me as a backbencher," an undaunted Oberg taunted in response. "I know where the skeletons are." He later half-apologized for these remarks – though significantly declined to regret saying them – but the prospect of family bones tumbling from the closet must have had journalists across the province salivating.
How did it all go so wrong? How did Klein, for so long praised for having his finger on the collective pulse of Albertans and being seemingly immune to the occasional gaffe (remember his drunken midnight visit to an Edmonton homeless shelter back in December 2001?), contrive to throw it all away at the end of his 13-year reign?
It’s tempting to point the finger at Rod Love. One of Canada’s astutest and most successful political advisors – a man Machiavelli would surely have admired – Love had guided Klein’s career from his first mayoral campaign in 1980 through to 1998, when he moved on to new projects. Along the way, more than any other individual, he had taken the rough charm and appeal of the "folksy" news reporter and turned him into a political juggernaut.
But since Love quit the premier’s entourage eight years ago, it’s been noticeable that Klein’s performance, personality and perceptiveness were not what they once were. "My political sense probably didn’t kick into gear," Klein confessed in 1998 over his handling of newly introduced legislation. And Love himself has echoed some of the doubts over Klein’s lengthy farewell. "I won’t deny there are some in the party who think (18 months) is too long," he said last week. ‘We’re about to find out how many there are with the vote on March 31."
That vote, of course, is now in. Accustomed to approval ratings in excess of 90 per cent, Klein managed to secure the support of just 55 per cent of his party’s 1,180 delgates late last Friday night. On Tuesday, he described that vote as "not strong enough to stay on as long as I had intended" and announced his intention to stand down once the party had chosen a successor, probably no later than November or December this year.
But that’s for the future. For now, it’s time to ponder what to make of Ralph Klein and his political legacy.
It’s perhaps worth recalling that Ralph Klein was first elected premier in the summer of 1993, just as Jurassic Park hit movie theatres across Canada. Dinosaurs were brought back to life by a rather eccentric old man, only to eventually turn on their saviour and run rampant across the land. I’m talking, of course, about Klein’s "Miracle on the Prairie," his salvaging of the all-but-extinct Getty-led Conservative party and his subsequent four successive terms in office.
As such, whatever the eventual manner of his leaving, Klein will, for better or worse, leave a deep imprint on this province. But it’s important that he now let go and allow history to begin the task of judging him, good and bad. |
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