We have to talk about Kevin
IF you are a politician who plays a hard game of personality politics, don't be surprised if your personality comes in for hard scrutiny. Especially if you claim that you have changed and you simultaneously launch a brutal, personal attack on your opponent. Hence, Kevin Rudd's character warrants close examination because no one That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain
plays personality politics as hard and fast as Rudd.
When the Labor caucus re-elected Rudd as leader, it was on the basis of personality alone. And the party duly scored an early poll boost as the new-old Prime Minister hit the ground campaigning, flying across the country, flitting over to Indonesia, kissing babies, smiling into iPhones, talking folksy, promising positivity, posing like an emperor as a long line of diplomats dipped their lids, and feeding the Rudd addiction with regular doses of social networking to get hits of approval via Twitter and Facebook.
The polls suggest voters are now remembering more about Rudd. Not just that he is a narcissist and a fake. Canberra is full of them. Rudd is more and worse than that. When he sent out an Instagram photo of himself with a shaving cut, it exposed more than Rudd counted on. The PM said he posted the "selfie" to prove that he bleeds, that he's human too. It was a telling comment. Most of us never think about proving we are human. It wouldn't cross our minds.
Rudd knows he is not like the rest of us and that's why he works so hard to prove that he is. Whether it's the weird way he talks or the cheesy smile he wears for those few seconds too long, or his unnatural hand gestures, Rudd is trying hard to fit in. The problem is the more Rudd tries to be like us, the less he is.
When Rudd was removed in 2010, it was not just about policy mistakes, though they weighed heavily. Rudd was also removed because of his temperament, the way he governed as PM. Plenty within Labor were anxious that Rudd's disturbing personality flaws would become known to the public. There were already slips: his hissy fits, his crude language, the white anger caught on camera and the rude, dismissive treatment of colleagues.
When Labor MPs spoke about the arrogance of Rudd, what Peter Beattie called his "fatal political flaw", his dysfunctional, grandiose and chaotic governing style - it wasn't hard to find evidence. Rudd's character translated into rushed policies (think the National Broadband Network, the school halls, the resource super profits tax), overblown rhetoric that only highlighted under-delivery (how many policies were "revolutions"), arrogance that he always knew better (ignoring warnings about the consequences of dismantling John Howard's immigration policy and safety concerns about pink batts) and thrilling symbolism over tangible outcomes (the apology to indigenous people was Rudd's crowning achievement as PM).
Wayne Swan was correct when he fingered Rudd as a "man with no Labor values". As David Marr pointed out in his June 2010 Quarterly Essay, Rudd didn't lift a finger for Labor after Gough Whitlam's dismissal in 1975. He didn't man booths, hand out pamphlets or join protest marches. Working as a cleaner in a hospital, Rudd told Marr that when he heard about the dismissal - the most tumultuous event in Australian political history - he leaned briefly on his mop, then returned to the cleaning task at hand. It was classic Rudd.
While Labor loyalties and animosities run deep, Rudd is known only for the latter. At most, he has relationships of convenience.
As PM, he treated Labor traditions with contempt, choosing to visit Cate Blanchett and her new baby rather than attend the funeral of Labor icon John Button. That single act became a defining moment for Rudd's status as a Labor locum, popping in to do a job with no Labor convictions.
Rudd's only political conviction is doing whatever it takes to get and keep power. Hence he can shift effortlessly from one persona to the other, comfortable selling any position, the only criteria being that it suits the politics of the day. Rudd calls for more positive politics only to launch a campaign of negativity. He calls for more civil politics after his three years of treachery to destabilise Julia Gillard. He attacks Tony Abbott for sexism despite his own tawdry history of demeaning behaviour towards a flight attendant and behaving badly at a strip club.
Rudd's history is based on shameless political shifts. In 1994, Rudd said his personal religious faith was a private affair - until Family First arrived on the scene in 2004, and Rudd embraced Sunday doorstops outside church and 5000-word tomes about his religious beliefs. Rudd told us he was an economic conservative until he became the big spending Keynesian barely a year later.
Climate change was the great moral issue of our time until the politics changed. Rudd advocated turning back the boats before the 2007 election until he joined the confected moralists a year later.
Alas, one observation about Rudd stood out as a bridge too far.
In 2010, Labor MP Steve Gibbons called Rudd a psychopath.
To many, the label is better suited to Hannibal Lecter types. Except that experts tell us there are plenty of psychopaths in the workplace. Often highly successful, highly functioning people, they ooze ersatz charisma to those who don't know them while causing enormous damage to an organisation. So common are these psychopaths, experts have written books distinguishing leadership traits from psychopathic traits.
A leader is charismatic, self-confident, able to influence, persuasive, visionary, able to take risks, action oriented and able to take hard decisions. A psychopath relies on superficial charm, makes great first impressions, is glib and grandiose, callous and manipulative, adept at conning people, refuses to accept responsibility for mistakes, is armed with an impressive supply of excuses, hates monotony preferring constant stimulation, and - most critically - has no empathy.
They never feel bad about anything they do. They are shameless. That's what psychologists Paul Babiak and Robert D. Hare set out in their book, Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work.
And this: a person with psychopathic traits often will use language "larded with jargon, cliches and flowery phrases" to make up for their lack of sincerity, becoming social chameleons to hide who they really are. Hmmm. It may be best if Rudd stopped the personality politics forthwith.
by: Janet Albrechtson
