The Senator had said the following: there’s an election coming; the party wondered if I had any interest in running; there would be a contested nomination. I heard and remembered: there’s an election coming; the Liberal Party of Canada wants me to run in St. Paul’s; I’m going to be a giant killer; I’ll have a brilliant political future. Hearing is the first casualty of politics, memory the second, family life perhaps the third.
The next day, I was off like a shot, soliciting advice. “Should I run?” I asked my father. “They should be asking me to run!” he answered. Not much help there. “What do you think?” I asked a work associate and former federal Cabinet minister. He gazed out the window, took a deep breath, and said wistfully, “The train is leaving the station. You don’t have to get on it, but you should not think it will pass this way again.” (Translation: .these opportunities come when they come. Politics has its own clock — his own shot at the leadership of the party dashed, he certainly knew.)
“Go for it,” said another former politician, “but first ask yourself this: if you looked back on a career in politics and could only point to a few small things you had accomplished, and if that’s enough, then go for it.” (Translation: .lower your expectations, and you’ll be fine..) “It’s a tough sport,” said a friend. “You suit up for football and suddenly find you’re in a hockey game without skates.”
“Absolutely.” “No question.” “You’ll be a great candidate.” “Let’s get started,” said the young and eager politicos who populate riding organizations, buzzing around politicians like hummingbirds at the feeder.
“A contested nomination is a great idea, unless you lose. Must manage this democracy business. Must avoid the adverse media that accompanies a designated candidate; someone else needs to run to legitimize the affair. You need to create the impression of strength and get moving right now,” warned my closest political confidant. I repeated his admonitions back to myself. I was becoming a cipher, suddenly, only to turn myself over to political operatives and handlers.
Like a fly to flypaper, every budding politician attracts a Svengali, a savvy, experienced, ambitious individual who seems to swoop in at just the right moment to “make it so.” Be thankful for Svengali. Svengali fills you with confidence, plots your assault on the nomination and the electorate, finds you staff and money and ideas as required. You need him because, caught up in the romance of your own candidacy, you’re a lousy manager. Sometimes Svengali does it for the sheer exhilaration, sometimes to claim “I made it happen.” Svengali always says, “Everything is all right,” until it isn’t, or, “Relax, we can handle it,” until he can’t. When it falls apart, he will say, “I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen.” If he sticks around too long, Svengali inevitably gets dismissed as a “bum boy” and derided for having “taken the Kool-Aid.” In addition to my Svengali, I would soon come to know sycophants, stalwarts, wannabes, diligent staff, selfless volunteers, and passionate partisans without whose support you can’t win a nomination or get elected. More than money, it is a mix of sycophancy and volunteerism that greases the political system.
The Liberal Party has a long history of nasty nominations, with countless “instant Liberals” bursting into meetings at the last minute to steal the day for their candidates. While I liked the Senator, I wondered who else he was talking to, how many others were being offered the opportunity to run in “my” riding? (There it is, just two days since the Senator’s visit, and the riding was mine!) I didn’t trust the party for one minute: if a brighter prospect came along, they’d dump me in a flash. “Don’t dither,” I was warned. If I moved with speed and confidence, other would-be candidates would be persuaded to look for a seat elsewhere. It’s not a game; it’s a chess match, maybe even a blood sport. Get to the riding executive and create facts on the ground, that was my strategy. Intoxicated, an operative unleashed, I surprised myself with my aggressiveness. I wanted this badly.
The riding executive appeared supportive, but there was someone else whose backing was particularly critical. Every riding has a fixer, someone you may not like but who could be ruinous to your future if he threw his weight and resources behind someone else. You might get lucky and have that fixer come to you. More likely, he needs to be courted, played, maybe begged, and brought onside. My target was — we’ll call him “Joe.”
A small, compact man of indeterminate age, Joe lived at the edge of the riding in a once heavily Italian area. Caribbean families had moved in as the children of first-generation Italians grew up, prospered, and moved north to new subdivisions. A 1950s immigrant from Italy, Joe stayed. Energetic and engaging, he held a succession of blue-collar jobs for the City of Toronto, and by the time I hooked up with him he knew everyone there was to know in city politics, and in the provincial and federal Liberal camps. With a big smile and a hug, he told everyone, “You’re beautiful.” From Joe, it felt genuine.
Joe held annual Canada Day barbecues in the garden behind his red-brick semi, which stretched over four or five backyards. Hundreds showed up. It was the barbecue to attend — the biggest and the smokiest summer political event in town, with big, beefy Italians barbecuing big, beefy sides of beef and succulent Italian sausages. To be introduced onstage in Joe’s backyard by Joe himself was a political rite of passage, and I ached to be on that stage. But there was more to Joe than barbecues. He had lots of “friends” who could be mobilized to help the right candidate. I would have to sit down and talk to him. “Come see me on Toursday,” he told me.
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