I think the horrible truth is that Paul Martin really doesn’t have a clear idea of why he wanted to be prime minister; he isn’t showing any evidence of it. (Paul Wells recently had fun with a speech in which Martin used the word ‘idea’ 16 times without really coming up with any.)
Shakespeare should have written a tragedy in which the first three and a half acts or so are taken up with a bitter struggle between the cynical old king and the scarcely less old usurper, once an outwardly loyal courtier. Finally, after many struggles, the usurper kills the king, who gives a long dying speech flaying all of the usurper’s character flaws, and the usurper is crowned.
Then it becomes slowly obvious that the usurper was really just in it for the game, and has no idea what it supposed to happen next. He equivocates, can’t make decisions, lets crises pass. Then – oh. I don’t know, the realm is conquered by somebody else, or something.