Wine and the big cheese

>> Mirror contributor schmoozes with earnest NDP peers. Part II of Noemi Lopinto's campaign diary

By NOEMI LOPINTO

On Monday, November 13, I found myself at the ritzy, downtown Château Versailles hotel in true politician style--smiling for the cameras. The room was so full of candidates, members of the press, fans, students and security agents that the air had gone stale. We were all waiting for our Great Leader: Alexa McDonough.

She's surprisingly short. I had been expecting a big, strapping Western-Canadian woman in a power suit. When she entered the room there was a burst of light from the cameras, and candidates jostled with journalists for a better look at her as she delivered a short speech.

Behind the podium stood her new cardboard persona, a photograph taken to replace the one in which her hair had a decidedly helmet-like appearance. Fashion sense is different from province to province apparently. In the Western provinces the highly sprayed, backlighted helmet is the height of hair fashion. It denotes maturity and respectability. However in Quebec the reaction was so negative the helmet was scrapped for a softer, more European look. Candidates, aware of the embarrassing tête carré photo, wore lapel buttons from the 1997 election.

At this point I began to understand what a professional politician does. When the candidates lined up one by one to be photographed beside her, McDonough held each person's hand, said something friendly and smiled unselfconsciously until the flash in the camera went off.

When my turn came, I was horrified. I did not feel that I could stand there bearing my canines for 30 seconds waiting for the flashbulbs to stop popping without melting into the floor at my own artificiality.

McDonough was swallowed up in a constantly evolving circle of people. If a person were to follow in her footsteps as she was manoeuvered from one face to another, they would have become dizzy fast. Within an hour she was gone--no doubt to board another plane and start all over again.

My fellow candidates fit into a broader range than what one would expect of a Leftist party. There were a few affirmative-action candidates (of which I am one), some pierced noses and eyebrows were in attendance, but there were also enthusiastic men in suits.

I have never in my life seen such an overwhelmingly earnest bunch. Rob Lindblad, the NDP candidate in Chateauguay shook my hand and told me when he wasn't campaigning he was a psychic who found lost children. Bruce Toombs, candidate in NDG/Lachine and a Humanities professor at Champlain College, has the energy to do door-to-door campaigning every day. He was on his way to a debate--his third this week--at Champlain College after the conference. I would have felt inadequate if I hadn't been so busy reaching for the white wine.

Wine and crudités are an aspect of the political life whose importance cannot be underestimated. There is something about standing with a carrot stick in your hand that lends easily to pontification. I have never felt so attracted to pompous verbosity. I imagined Jean Chrétien having a highball and cheese slice with his CEO buddies after a hard day of mudslinging. I felt a curious understanding wash over me. The wine, as it happens, was really very good.

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