Dirty laundry

>> The unsanitary side of politicking. The final instalment of Mirror contributor Noemi Lopinto's campaign diary

by NOEMI LOPINTO

So, it's over. No more breakfast, lunch and dinner at Dunkin' Donuts. No more climbing an endless stream of interminably winding stairca-ses trying to rid myself of the nearly 20,000 pamphlets, flyers and posters that had been cluttering up my living room. No more eating, sleeping and dreaming politics.

I campaigned as a single mother. I spoke openly about it as proof that I understand issues of poverty and the importance of the safety net, but I'll have you know there is a very good reason why politics is dominated by men. It's called housework.

Every time I stepped over the mounds of mixed-up clean and dirty laundry, walked past the piled garbage bags in the pantry (missed garbage day twice in a row), saw the recycling pouring onto the kitchen floor or ate straight out of a tin can, I wondered how the other candidates did it. Then I remembered: wives. There is a reason Stockwell Day parades around with his wife attached to his hip: she's probably keeping him in those squeaky clean, ironed shirts. Luckily, I did most of my interviews on the radio, where my unkempt state was nobody's business.

Another aspect of single motherhood raised its head when we affirmative-action candidates received our campaign funds 10 days before the election--$400 dollars short. We were promised $1,200 by the NDP. Not one word of warning was breathed until we found ourselves looking at cheques for $800. This meant money that I had already spent (thinking I would reimburse myself) was lost. The money was supposed to be in a special fund intended only for women, handicapped and minority candidates. I can only assume an already poor, disorganized party went dipping into the coffer. Just for the record, that sucked.

As for the relationship of the media to politics, I was called on to be interviewed by the Italian press for being Italian, "ethnic" radio for being of mixed Romanian-Jewish-Italian ancestry, community radio because I am marginal, The Gazette because I am different. But not a single interview from the mainstream French-language press. Not that I'm bitter or anything. The last tally for the NDP--gleaned from my seat with about 20 other NDP organizers, volunteers, and candidates at Reggie's at 1:30 in the morning--was two per cent for the province. I myself won a beautiful three per cent of the vote in my Rosemont/Petite-Patrie riding, or 1,936 votes. That people were impressed is a testament to the pathetic state of the NDP in this province. "That's one per cent more than the average!" someone said.

If I have any wisdom to impart to would-be candidates it's this:

1) Save your money before you do this. Money is everything.

2) Never again laugh at the manic hand-shaking and baby-kissing of any given politician. It works. It's stupid, but it really works.

3) If you really want to get in shape, chuck your gym membership out the window and try climbing those quaint winding staircases for five hours every day. It's going to take my ass another four weeks to atrophy back to normal.

more news...