KINSELLA: Voters drawn to image over substance as election campaign starts

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It’s 70% how you look, 20% how you say it, and 10% what you actually say.

That, former B.C. premier Gord Campbell once said to me, is how voters assess candidates. How you look — as a candidate, as a person — matters way, way more than your position on just about any issue.

Voters, you see, make big political decisions, with their guts, not their heads. That may be depressing, but it’s the truth. And the best way to get voters to pay attention, and get them on your side, is with pictures, not words.

So, as Election 2025 gets underway, the pictures offered up by the main political parties are very, very revealing.

An hour before the election officially started, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre wore a dark coat, a white shirt and a dark tie. He’d gotten a hair cut.  He stood on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, with the Chateau Laurier and Parliament Hill shimmering behind in him.

His podium declared “CANADA FIRST” — notably, no more “axe the tax.” Poilievre’s tone was a bit more hopeful, a bit more upbeat, and he even smiled once or twice. He’s the leader of the Opposition, and the challenger, so his message was naturally a critical one: “Our nation is more divided than ever before … we can’t afford another lost Liberal decade.”

There were some notes that jarred — he called the Grits “globalists,” which the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League say is a term favoured by antisemites — but Poilievre was pretty focused and composed. And, after he finished answering questions, Poilievre reached for his infant son, Cruz, and he instantly looked lighter and more human. It looked good on him.

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Mark Carney, meanwhile, is known to be a pretty bland, low-key guy — in effect, the career banker that he is. So, the strategists in his leadership campaign — and now his election campaign — have devoted a lot of effort at crafting a homey, regular-guy image for him. In January, Carney went on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and appeared relaxed and occasionally funny. It won him the Liberal leadership.

Earlier this week, they did more of the same, but on this side of the border. Carney skated with the Edmonton Oilers — in goalie skates, because he was one in college — and he didn’t fall down. For that, he won some approving words by Oiler captain Connor McDavid. But what mattered most were the visuals — showing Carney at a rink, Canada’s church, and showing his obvious fondness for our national game.

Will it work? Well, Stephen Harper was a rink-rat, a decade ago, and it sure helped his political fortunes, didn’t it?

Then, just hours before the election kicked off, Carney’s hockey-loving team did it again — and quietly released a 60-second spot featuring Carney and fabled Canadian comedian Mike Myers. And, yet again, at a rink.  The ad was jokey and fun, and contained not a word about policy. But it confirmed that the newly-minted Grit leader knows the importance of images in politics.

His official campaign launch came outside Rideau Hall, before a simple wooden podium bearing a maple leaf and nothing else. Like Poilievre, Carney wore a dark tie and a dark coat — but with his collar up, and his Order of Canada pin clearly visible. He didn’t look or sound nervous, as he often did during the two Liberal leadership debates. He talked like a banker (as in, his answers were too long, and too policy-heavy.)

But in English and French, Carney used the words “strong” or “strength” over a dozen times. That, clearly, is central to the Liberals’ anti-Trump messaging and — so far, say the pollsters — it’s working. And, notably, Carney’s very first words after stepping out of his meeting with the Governor General were about starting his political career at “a hockey rink in Edmonton.”

That, clearly, is the image the Carney Liberals want us to remember: Their leader as a regular Canadian guy, hanging out at hockey rinks, loving the bits out of his country, fighting Donald Trump. And, in fact, those were Carney’s final words in his prepared remarks: “I love Canada. Our country has given me everything. I want to give back to Canada.”

The visual verdict: on day one, both Pierre Poilievre and Mark Carney looked like what they aspire to be — Canada’s next, elected, Prime Minister. The pictures were just right. The pictures were perfect.

The next 37 days will decide who we, the people, picture in the top job.