All new leaders must make an impression, but the Taoiseach's has so far been too one-dimensional, writes MARK HENNESSY.
NEWLY ELECTED leaders, no matter how long they have been around in lesser roles, have a very short time in which to make an impression on the public. Brian Cowen, so far, is ploughing a very distinctive furrow into the public consciousness: some of it, no doubt, planned; some of it not.
Like all leaders, however, his greatest skill - in his case oratory - is also, potentially, the source of his greatest weakness, as he showed in the Dáil last week. His use of earthy language will undoubtedly be the memory most people take away from the exchanges, though it is not the most important.
Instead, it is his warning that he would silence Enda Kenny if the latter failed to control his own troops during Leaders' Questions that should be noted more. Cowen has grounds for complaining about Fine Gael's conduct, because it is clear that they are trying to goad him into reaction. But they are only doing it because they believe that he will snap, leaving behind the 20 seconds of video that will forever define him in the public mind.
A partly "off-mike" expletive will not be enough for that, however, since it has probably done Cowen as much good as harm.
Undoubtedly, Cowen has realised, quite profoundly so in fact, the weight of the office that he now carries upon his shoulders. But, equally, he must fully comprehend the reality that as Taoiseach his life will be examined in ways that have never happened up to now, even as minister for finance.
That is not easy for any man to do, and not easy for anyone to get right all the time; and he will not, any more than any of his equally human predecessors did. But he would do best to avoid Fine Gael's Dáil trap in future, and yet also avoid changing his image so much that the public think that he has been neutered. Fine Gael made that mistake with Michael Noonan, who was respected by the public as a political heavyweight, but ridiculed when softened by the party's image-makers.
Cowen has a few issues.
Some voters have a picture in their mind that he is thuggish and ignorant. He is not, but describing some people as "f**kers" does not help with that constituency. Most think that he is a political bruiser, so there is little point trying to change that public element of his character and, in any event, such a reputation has its uses.
But he must match that with displaying the other elements of his make-up that has made him so adored within the ranks of Fianna Fáil up to now.
The following vignette may illustrate. Last year, Ryan Tubridy's Saturday night TV programme invited both Cowen and Bertie Ahern to appear on different nights.
Despite being told that it was a light entertainment show, with no minefields, Cowen, distrustful and stiff as a poker, came in a pin-striped suit and pretty much "flopped". Ahern, on the other hand, turned up, took the "mick" out of himself about hanging baskets and wearing yellow jackets, and had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand.
Cowen successfully showed a different side of himself during his Offaly homecoming; singing songs, but, more importantly, displaying clear links with home and hearth. But that was among his own. He is far less enthusiastic about revealing anything about himself in other environments, and that will have to change.
The warmth created by the Offaly images needs to be regularly reinforced by his day-to-day appearances, where he is usually personally engaging, if not always subsequently so on camera.
Cowen would have done better to have ignored much of the Opposition's heckling on Wednesday, particularly since it followed an inept question from Kenny, and especially since such taunts come across only as babble on TV. However, Cowen - and this is a weakness - is hewn from the debating tradition where opponents' arguments must be always defeated and crushed. Actually, they do not - particularly during the brief minutes allowed to Leaders' Questions in the Dáil, when Cowen can play the clock down and leave Kenny foundering.
Kenny needs the Dáil platform far more than Cowen does, since the latter can guarantee his appearance on RTÉ's Six One Newsany time he wants.
His predecessor happily mumbled his way through much of his time in the Dáil, and it did him little harm. Indeed, it was on the days that he spoke clearly that he often got into trouble.
Cowen's "I'll silence you, if you don't silence yours" threat was not issued in the heat of the moment, and is not made more sensible by his subsequent justifications. Initially, Cowen's people talked about "regret"; though he himself went further yesterday morning after the papers had had their turn.
Still, these are the early weeks of the Cowen era, and the decision to scrap Fianna Fáil's Galway Races tent, hopefully, marks a far more significant change in tone, and a break with the Ahern era.
Certainly, the tent is far from what it once was during its late 1990s glory days when property developers, builders and others cosied up to ministers over prawn cocktails.
The smarter of these - conscious that the tent had become too public - have long disappeared, even if it was a useful backdrop for people like Bovale's Mick Bailey to show two fingers to the media and tribunal after he and his brother had been criticised by the Mahon tribunal and after they had settled a €25 million bill with the Revenue Commissioners. Now one can only hope that the demise of the tent marks a reduction in the power of the building lobby on the heart of the Government; one that has often not been in the public good.
Here, alas, there is far less room for optimism, particularly since Cowen has done nothing to instil confidence that he realises there is a problem, let alone is doing anything about it.
As minister for finance, he refused to scrap a highly efficient tax avoidance that has saved developers tens of millions since, and will do so again once the current cash shortage is but a memory.