2006. Years on, another campaign. I find myself at the doors of voters, this time helping out a friend running for re-election. The campaign brochure from the Conservative candidate is stuck between the frame and doorknob of the third house we visit. I am about to knock, but I pause to take a look at it. The challenger has the fresh face, the new blood, the promise of change. This time, when the text speaks of scandal and inaction, it is us they are criticizing. I spoke about the Tories in the same terms when I ran for office. Today it is our heads they want on spikes at the gates of Parliament Hill. Having once been the agents of change, we find it hard to be the brunt of it. And we have other problems. As Pogo famously said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Now it is our party that is imploding and tearing itself apart. It is we who are eating our young. There are cycles to these things in politics.
* * *
1992. I was pacing. The good Senator, the political incarnation of an aging game show host on a talent search, was on the hunt for fresh meat to run as Liberal candidates in the next election, and he wanted to see me.
It doesn’t usually just happen to you out of the blue, however. You are seldom plucked out of obscurity to serve; you do it to yourself. I had dropped more than a few hints over the years that I might be interested in running, had paid my dues working on the executive of the local riding association, and had attended the requisite number of brain-numbing policy conventions where earnest young women and men (like me) bashed heads over resolutions adopted at plenary sessions, printed in glossy summaries, and promptly forgotten. Still, I had done things to get myself noticed, and I asked people close to the newly elected party leader how my candidacy might be received. A law school classmate and adviser to the leader said party headquarters would be “okay with my candidacy” — not exactly a ringing endorsement. And yet, and yet, I was flattered that the Senator wanted to see me — me, when there were so many potential big name candidates.
I might have asked myself why no one else wanted to run, and I did. Our prospects were dim, and I was a nobody. Were fresh-faced recruits ordered to go over the top against the vicious Hun in the First World War equally flattered? I wondered. But I was young, politically witless, really, and I wanted to get involved, wanted to make a difference, and was drawn to this roiling adventure. Also, I couldn’t keep criticizing the calibre of people in government without offering myself up. And now the Senator wanted to see me. I was attracted and repelled (okay, more attracted than repelled), like a testosterone-pumped sixteen-year-old being cruised by a hooker in a cheap bar.
My wife and I went over the plan. She would stay upstairs with our young boys while I sat with the Senator. “We’ll see how things go,” I said. “Probably a good idea for him to meet you, maybe even the boys,” I added. (Translation: he’ll need to size up how we’ll look in the campaign literature.)
The doorbell rang — the Senator, ebullient, all smiles and twinkling eyes, gave me a firm handshake. “So good of you to ask me over — great place you have here,” he announced, deftly turning the tables. (He had asked to see me — invited himself over, actually.) We chit-chatted. It was fluid and warm, but my anxiety was rising. Finally, he gracefully edged toward the question: “You know there’s an election coming next year, and . . .” Just then, the bone-chilling scream of a child wailed through the house, abruptly followed by my wife yelling, “Oh, shit!” “Is everything okay?” asked the Senator. “Oh, I’m sure it’s all under control, please go on.” Another shriek, and the sound of obvious commotion overhead. “Perhaps I’ll just go see if I’m needed,” I said. “It shouldn’t be more than a moment.
“I left the family room casually, then bounded up the stairs. “What the hell is going on?” I blurted out, heading into the bathroom. My five-year-old was cowering. With a large spoon and a knife in one hand and a Tupperware container in the other, his mother was trying to coax him off the toilet. My son looked as though he was about to be circumcised again. “What is going on?” I hissed. “I need to get a stool sample for the pediatrician,” my wife replied. “You know he’s been sick, but he won’t let me at it. Can you please help?” “Why didn’t you tell me about this, and do we have to do this now?” I shouted. “I did tell you,” she responded icily. “Yesterday — but you weren’t listening. And, incidentally, Mr. God’s gift to politics, I can only get a stool sample when he wants to go. You can’t command it, you know, not even you!” The spectacle of bobbing for shit while the Senator sat waiting was too much. I fled back downstairs.
Some things are omens, and this might have been the trailer for Eager Young Thing Goes to Ottawa — spouse and lads on their own, up to their elbows in shit, God’s gift to politics puts himself front and centre as the future beckons. The Senator was pacing — rethinking my candidacy, I worried? There it is, the first sign of a politician born: it’s always about you. “Perhaps we should continue this some other time,” he said, glancing at his watch. “No, no, please sit down,” I pleaded. He leaned toward me. “With an election next year, we were wondering if you had an interest in being a candidate for us in the St. Paul’s riding. There would be a contested nomination, but you shouldn’t have any problem with that. A contested nomination is better anyway — too much baggage if you are parachuted in.” “But the external affairs minister is the current MP for the area,” I observed. “Well, yes,” he said, “but if you can knock her off, they’ll call you a giant killer. I’m off to the baseball game. Think about it.”
Realizing now that the Senator was mostly concerned about not being late for the Blue Jays game, I stammered, “If you could just wait a minute, I’ll get my wife. She wants to meet you,” I lied. “Oh, dear,” I yelled upstairs in my sweetest come-hither voice, “the Senator wants to meet you,” I lied again. She came downstairs, shook the Senator’s hand, and said hello. He said, “Your husband is a hell of a guy, a hell of a guy. He could be a great candidate. He’s got a great future.” “He sure does,” she replied in a faraway voice. “Nice to meet you,” said the Senator as he turned away. My wife had just learned the first lesson of politics: the political spouse might as well be (as she later put it) a paper doll or cardboard cut-out to hold up at events. As far as the powers that be are concerned, the political spouse is irrelevant — unless she happens to murder her big shot husband, which at that moment was entirely possible.
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