As the song says, when you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you. (Having argued of late about the importance of substance over style, permit me a lighter topic in this post)
In 25 years of polling and exploring how people feel in focus groups, I've learned a lot about human nature.
In the realm of politics, few of those lessons have stuck with me as much as the way people react to visible signals of ebullience or worry in the faces of their political leaders.
The whole idea of well educated, largely self reliant people choosing leaders is a bit odd, when you think about it. While we logically choose to have government pursue collective goals or deliver common services, and we would want someone competent to run our government, it's not as obvious that we would feel a need to have someone play the role of "leader" of our society.
And yet, as cynical as we can be, most of us can articulate what we want in a leader, and certainly can describe what repels us.
When characterizing what we like or don't like, we often rely on concepts such as strong or weak, hard-nosed or vacillating, warm or cold, introspective or popularity addicted, determined or lacking fire in the belly. All good, all relevant, based on my work.
But one thing that's frequently underestimated is the enormous power of optimism, an infectious enthusiasm for the future. It's human nature: offered a menu of hope or fear, we dine on hope.
Think Jean Chretien, Bill Clinton, Brian Mulroney, Barack Obama. These are people whose basic pitch was the future looks so bright, let me hand you some shades.
Then think about leaders who occupied the other end of the spectrum, folks who looked troubled by the harsh realities they foresaw, and wanted us to know just how disturbing the future looked. In recent memory, Kim Campbell and John Turner both seemed to morph from the leaders we wanted them to be: sunny, confident, determined to make the best of our great prospects, to leaders who seemed to be telling us to worry about this or that, but don't squander a single night on sleep.
Now I know that there are many other factors that people will rush to tell me helped spell the unfortunate outcomes for these leaders, but my point is a more general one. And, there is actually quite a bit of science about the social effects of smiling, and even a name (Duchenne smile) for the type of facial expression that seems the most sincere and spontaneous.
Leaders who smile, who signal that we are going to succeed, are leaders we are drawn to. Leaders who signal just how bad things are or could be, who appear to be bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders, find us slipping their embrace.
As Stephen Harper reflects on why his stage performance came off so well, and as Michael Ignatieff ponders the tone and style of his forthcoming "adult conversation," both would do well to bear this aspect of our psychology in mind.
Bruce Anderson