Pick your poison, B. A. Santamaria or Joh Bjelke-Petersen?
Santamaria was more of a funny meme and never had remotely as much actual power as Bjelke-Petersen so I'll go with him.
One of the most read newspaper columns in the country, free prime time television show on the highest rating network, informally approved an entire generation of Catholic bishops and archbishops, arguably singlehandedly kept Victorian Labor out of power for 30 years, counts about a quarter of the contemporary Liberal Party as proteges...
