Wednesday, 9th June 2004, 5:34pm
An opinion by:
NoemiOn the Stump `04 by Noemi LoPinto
I think I am allergic to politics. In 2000, when I ran as a candidate for the NDP, the first week of campaigning gave me a raging case of stomach flu. This time, it's the chills and a throat full of razor blades. But the timing is the same: an election has been called, I am supposed to be running a campaign, and I am too sick to properly run it.
Paragraph 66(1) of Canadian electoral law states that any wanna-be candidate must get permission from a minimum of 100 members of the electorate before presenting him or herself in their riding. Elections Canada distributes a package of empty pages, and unless you are loaded with cash to pay "volunteers", or have the hypnotic powers of a cult leader, then you have to do it the old fashioned way: go door to door and beg for signatures.
Last time, the election took place in late November. I ran for the NDP, a party I ended up learning to hate. The people were overwhelmingly anglophone, nerdy, earnest, neurotic types. They were mostly from upper-middle class English families, and working for the NDP was their idea of slumming it. Their platform was full of impossibly rosy promises, and the then-leader was an embarassment to women in politics. (They also failed the ultimate litmus test: they didn't like my writing!)
So this time I signed up for the Green Party. It was fairly easy; they were short a candidate in what is now my riding (Bourassa), probably because it is only slightly south of Nunavut, and west of India. Jesus Christ. It's a raging irony that I, a Green party candidate and naturally a proponent of mass transportation, can't get to my riding without a car.
I was met and interviewed two weeks ago by a Green Party organiser. During the interview, one question he asked me gave me pause. He asked me if I had anything to be ashamed of. And I thought of a million things: my early attempts at short-story writing. The fact that I failed my driving theory exam, twice. The time I mooned three lanes of traffic. Or the time I mentioned anal penetration during a fancy diplomatic dinner. All the times I got fired, laughed inappropriately, or disciplined someone else's child. Turns out they just wanted to know if I had a criminal record.
All things considered, I was accepted with shocking speed. And then I had to go all the way to Bourassa to explain to people why they should sign on the dotted line. And goddamnit, I hate tossing my hat into the ring, really. An interest in politics is usually a good marker for what separates "them" from "us" and when you suddenly join the "thems", it's damned embarassing. First of all, it rips the mask of cynicism off your face, and what are you to replace it with? Idealism? To be an idealist in federal politics means you have to pretend to believe the system works for rather than against ordinary people. Also it's inherently arrogant, because you are pretending that you, yourself, have the key to their social and economic ills.
Other members of the Green Party are definitely idealists. Three members, Dylan Maxwell, his friends Rob and David, and his infamous tin can on wheels, were invaluable in carting my sorry ass up to Bourassa to get signatures. Maxwell drove his hybrid Diesel/Vegetable oil Volkswagen, which everyone in the Plateau knows by sound and its popcorn smell. He has rigged the poor thing up with an elaborate system of wires, duct tape and gaping parts, which are sprawled all over the dashboard. The fuel sloshes around in white lard buckets in the back seat. Maxwell starts the car on diesel fuel, and then he reaches with a flourish into the curling mass of wires and locates a tiny, metal switch. That switch opens the door to sunflower power. His friend David came with us the first day, his long brown hair in an elegant bun on top of his head. Rob--a half-blind man with scuffed jeans who, hair-wise, sports the Farrah Fawcett look--also helped. Maxwell himself is six feet of talking hair and hemp, from his hat to his shoes. He's one of the sweetest guys I have ever met. These three, and me and Sadie all went a-knockin' on doors.
My riding consists overwhelmingly of middle class families and home owners. There are few apartment buildings, but mostly cute bungalows with nicely tended lawns. Nevertheless, people are rarely as closed-minded as one would assume. Or perhaps my Green Party posse frightened people into signing--because we got the signatures. The reactions generally followed the same pattern: friendliness upon approach, suspicion at the mention of politics, relief that it was only the Green Party, and finally a signature. One funny anecdote: in the middle of Day 2, Sadie suddenly complained of having to pee. The problem is, as soon as she says the word "pee pee", I suddenly have to go. It's a leftover from us having once shared my bladder, I guess. It's a fairly common occurence for us to fight over the toilet, because she says "pee pee" and suddenly an entire day's worth of coffee, Guru's, water, juice, saliva, and tea are knocking on my bladder door. So she says "pee
pee" and then we both bolt for the bathroom. She usually ends up winning, while I dance. This time, however, I was not only her Mommy and siamese-bladder-twin, but Noemi LoPinto, eminent journalist and potential political candidate. And there was not a restaurant, gas station or
depanneur in sight. Nothing but seamless lawns, as far as the goddamn eye could see. And I couldn't ring on a doorbell and announce my candidacy, and ask if my lovely daughter can use the facilities without hopping about like a jack rabbit, myself. So I was stuck. I kept ringing doorbells and hoping the problem would go away. Sadie became more and more strident. Finally, I rang a doorbell and a hirsute, heavy-set man opened the door. Sadie screeched "PEE PEE"--and without missing a beat, the man slammed the door in our faces! Just like in the movies. My legs buckled. I started dancin', and Sadie just pulled her underwear down, squatted and pissed right there on the man's verdant lawn.
Despite the aura of suburban tranquility, Bourassa has its own pockets of poverty. Some of the filth and signs of struggle I saw over people's shoulders as they bent to sign my petition positively begged to be rectified. Once again, I got a notion of the potential of power, when you combine it with getting to know strangers and their needs. Like, I could fix things! I could clean up the slums, and build homes for people, try and get them better jobs, take care of the kids, (make the *&^%_)*&%#@ metro more accessible), plants trees and build communal gardens. I could try and help Gilberte, an octogenarian who had just lost her son to cancer, but who reached for her pen and invited me into her dining room as I stood fumbling between apologies and condolences. I could help this elderly black grandmother I met, and slap her slum landlord with a fine, a whipping or a public egging, for the state of the building she lived in. But soon after the lovely visions came a little tickle in the throat, an ache in my back. I recognised them for what they were: symptoms of an immuno-response, an allergic reaction to the political virus. Within hours I was flat on my back, sick as a dog. I guess if Jean Chrétien's election call made me puke, Paul Martin's makes me ache all over.
Later,
N
