Two larger-than-life politicians who the public came to appreciate later on in their terms of office, were laid to rest within the past two weeks.
Ralph Klein and now Margaret Thatcher ended their final chapters just recently and although their constituencies were continents apart, we truly believe they probably saw eye-to-eye on a number of topics from a right-of-centre perspective and would have enjoyed each other's company.
Klein liked to shoot from the lip and often his original responses to prickly questions on sensitive issues got him in trouble. But the populace knew that although he might dig himself a verbal hole once in awhile, Ralph could always climb out of it because deep down, they knew, he was well intentioned and really, not a bad guy once you got to know him. A lot of Albertans felt they knew him because he was a genuine person. A bit of a cartoon character of himself at times, but still genuine, and you can't beat genuine when it comes to politics.
For the Iron Lady, it was a matter of living up to principles and living up to promises. She had that iron will to pull the United Kingdom out of its morass and downward spiral, something she inherited in the first round as their prime minister.
She was a stickler for rules, which she famously noted a few times, "you can't suspend or go around the rules. Many governments try to do that."
And when they did that, they would ultimately fail because the facts and truth would eventually catch up to them.
Thatcher also made the observation that governments don't generally spend the money they're given very wisely. She said that the more governments take, the less there is for the people to do what they need to do in business and in social services.
On the other hand, she raised taxes ... because she had to, but that was to pay down the debt and set a new course for England, not to take over the lives of the citizens because after all, as she also observed, "if the state does everything for you, then it takes everything from you."
In other words, there wasn't a lot of socialist in Maggie.
The steel-eyed woman with the transfixed trademark hairdo set the stage so that Brits could provide personal responsibility using private initiative. It was from that perspective, she felt, you gained freedom.
"The right to take on responsibility, that's freedom," she said.
But she wasn't so staunch in her stance that she couldn't see the forest for the trees because she also famously realized that divergent opinions were to be welcomed and digested and that translated to pretty well any subject or topic, including politics. If you were a smart socialist, she wanted to hear what you had to say and was willing to include or adapt your good ideas, because if she did that, she knew that it was not only healthy, but would probably lead to efficient decision-making and maybe a re-election.
Yes, Ralph and the Iron Lady were no cookie-cutter politicians, thank God, and the people they governed were a lot better off having had them in leadership roles at crucial times in their history.
