The contrast with a divided alternative who couldn't even organise a photo opportunity properly could not have been greater. The other great example of visual leadership is Pauline Hanson. Pauline would not have got to first base if, under constant pressure from journalists and commentators who use cultural issues to parade their own virtue, mainstream liberal-conservative politicians had not caved in and vacated from seriously contesting issues such as immigration and indigenous affairs. Hence various forms of 'separate development' are treated in mainstream public debate as the only acceptable policies for indigenous affairs. Those stifled, indeed vilified, sentiments give her an audience.
Leadership has to have substance to sustain it.
In a pre-packaged age Hanson speaks her mind. She can be clumsy, awkward, inarticulate, visibly nervous. But that just makes her seem more authentically a voice of stifled, ordinary people. The sheer courage she has displayed has been one of the more remarkable features of their whole saga. Indeed, she has displayed far more courage than the ravening herd of elite commentators who have screamed at her so as to shore up their own public displays of conspicuous virtue.