Tom’s take: What we have here is a failure to communicate

In Vaudeville the rule was: never follow kids or dogs.

In Newfoundland politics the rule is never follow Danny Williams.

No one, no matter how talented, could ever measure up to the larger-than-life Codfather of modern politics on The Rock. Kathy Dunderdale didn’t come close, and she paid the price.

It’s not that she was incompetent. Far from it. She inherited a booming provincial economy and managed to improve it. So adept was she at moving towards balanced books that she was voted Canada’s “best fiscal performer” by the Fraser Institute. She handled the massive Muskrat Falls file successfully and, happily for the country, she continued to fund those absolutely amazing Newfoundland and Labrador tourism television commercials.

The root causes of her failure though, stand as a warning to all politicians everywhere in the country.

Not only did Dunderdale have to try to measure up to Williams, she had to prove she could enter the pantheon of all those larger-than-life Newfoundland premiers of the past: Smallwood, Wells, Tobin, etc. As leaders they all shared one trait: they were brilliant and entertaining communicators. Dunderdale was decidedly not. They could embody the humour, the passion and the story of the province. She couldn’t.

ABOVE: Kathy Dunderdale, the first female premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, stepped down on Wednesday after watching her popularity slide among her constituents and her own party. Ross Lord reports.

The teachable moment is that even if you create a sound economic environment, it’s sometimes not enough.

If you don’t seem as if you understand the people you lead, your career will end badly.

If you can’t tell and sell the story of your homeland, your career may be short.

Dunderdale made a host of mistakes in office, as do all other leaders. She couldn’t explain why she brought in laws that created more, not less, secrecy in government and she was inexplicably absent when her province suffered massive blackouts.

But in the end, her undoing was that not enough Newfoundlanders believed she was one of them. She couldn’t become a big enough personality who could capture and express the soul of Newfoundland. She was warm, pleasant, competent, and well-meaning. But none of that mattered.

Her rise and fall leaves a difficult question: how is it that a competent manager but bad communicator like Dunderdale couldn’t make it, while a buffoon like Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who can’t manage himself, let alone his city, survives because he apparently communicates well?

Ah, politics.