The High Road (6 page)

“No need to prolong this any further. I’m a candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in Cumberland-Prescott and I pledge in all that I do to put the interests of our country and our citizenry first, even if the voters of Cumberland-Prescott may not always agree. I know the people of this community can lift their eyes beyond the Ottawa River to see the vast potential of this great nation.”

Angus paused and lowered his eyes to the floor as if reviewing in his mind the list of items he wished to cover. He seemed to put a mental check mark in each box and lifted his head again.

“I told Muriel and tardy Executive Assistant Daniel Addison yesterday that I’d not run again were they not beside me, and I meant it. I was honoured when Muriel reported to me early this morning that both she and Daniel were with me. I offer them my
deep gratitude. Here endeth the sermon,” he said, triggering a few snickers among the reporters. “I’m told that I must now entertain your questions, whether I want to or not. So, fire when ready.”

I slipped into the chair next to Muriel as Angus scanned the room for reporters’ questions.

“You told Angus this morning that I’d be there for him?” I asked her, still perplexed. She didn’t even have the courtesy to look sheepish.

“I know you, Daniel Addison, and I knew what you’d ultimately decide. What does it matter that I realized it before you did?” she replied, looking at Angus the entire time. “And I was right, wasn’t I?”

I too turned my attention to the Liberal candidate at the mike. This was not the first time most of the gathered reporters had been exposed to Angus McLintock’s uncommon approach to politics. When Angus had initially laid out his beliefs on election night back in October, the reporters just weren’t ready and had no idea how to react. Angus had finished his eloquent, powerful, yet impromptu acceptance speech to stunned silence and then stepped out of the scrum and headed for the car for the ride home. I hustled to catch up, mentally and physically, as did the reporters. Now, some four months later, the scribes were ready. A reporter from the
Ottawa Sun
piped up first.

“Angus, do you really think the voters of C-P are ready to turn their backs on over one hundred years of traditional Tory rule in this area and send a Liberal back to Ottawa?”

“I frankly think it’s a long shot, but we’re going to find out,” responded Angus. Short and sweet.

“Just between you and I, are you planning on using the hovercraft in your campaign?” asked another reporter.

“Hmmm. I hadn’t really thought about that but I imagine
Baddeck 1
may well see some action in the campaign. And for the record, I’m sure you meant to say ‘Just between you and me’ in your question. But you need not feel too bad, the ‘Just between you and I’ construction is probably one of the most oft-made
grammatical mistakes, so you’re in very good company, laddie,” Angus soothed, as I winced. Embarrassing the reporters at your own news conference was definitely on the “Don’t” page in the candidate’s handbook. I furrowed my brow in Angus’s direction but he wasn’t looking my way.

“There’s a rumour that Emerson ‘the Flamethrower’ Fox will toss his hat into the ring for the Tories. As he is the father of negative campaigning, how do you feel about facing him?”

This was the first I’d heard of Fox running for the Tories. This was definitely not good news for our side.

“Well, I hadn’t heard that, and I’ve never met him,” Angus replied. “I’m not one to prejudge a man but I can tell you that if Mr. Fox does run, he need not fear that I will spend the campaign in the gutter engaged in ‘negative campaigning.’ The voters of Cumberland-Prescott, indeed all Canadians, deserve a campaign that discusses the issues and challenges we face as a nation.”

“Knowing that Fox is going to delve deeply into your past, are you worried about anything you’ve done that might come back to haunt you in the campaign?”

“We all have our weaknesses – heaven knows, I surely do. But this is already a somewhat foreshortened campaign. There really isn’t time to explore all of my faults, imperfections, and many indiscretions,” Angus deadpanned. By the guffaws and head-shaking, the room liked his answer.

“I figure most of us have some regrets as we look back on lives lived but I sleep mercifully soundly most nights. I spent nearly forty years married to a paragon of virtue. My late wife set very high standards that I still strive to meet. I frequently fall short, yet I strive still. In the end, the voters of C-P will be the final arbiters and I’m at peace with that.”

“How goes the fundraising?” inquired a smirking reporter from
Maclean’s
magazine.

“I actually haven’t a clue, but as far as I know, we’ll be living on a shoestring again.” Angus looked my way, and I pulled my thawing pants pockets inside out and nodded in confirmation.

A reporter for Canadian Press pointed my way when she asked her question.

“Has Daniel already started researching the Flamethrower’s life in the hopes of finding a grenade to lob his way during the campaign?”

“Whomever we face, there’ll be none of that on our campaign. We simply refuse to partake in that kind of effort. Call me old-fashioned but we have too much respect for democracy to go tearing it down in that way. When you hear me speak about any of my opponents, it will only be to question, oppose, or support positions they’re advancing in the context of the platform I’ll be promoting.”

“Aren’t you being horribly and fatally naïve about all this? You’re talking about changing how politics has been conducted in this country for the last fifty years,” exclaimed a press gallery skeptic.

“My goals are not nearly so ambitious. I’m merely passing on to you how we intend to conduct our campaign. Call it tilting at windmills if you wish, it makes no matter to me. I’m just going about things the way I think they should be gone about,” Angus concluded with a faint shrug. Any nervousness had dissipated. Despite the tailored suit that looked too small and too large depending on the body part examined, Angus actually seemed completely at ease in his own skin. I can’t imagine anyone else being at home in it, but Angus clearly was.

“I wonder if you’ll still be singing that tune after Emerson Fox launches his first incendiary offensive,” said a reporter, sitting at the back and out of my view.

“Believe me, laddie, you don’t want me singing under any circumstances. Just be happy I’ve not brought my bagpipes with me.”

After a few more questions, Muriel took the stage to thank them for coming and to invite them to call me at any time for campaign updates.

So it was official. Angus was back in the play. And so was I.

Angus embraced me in the parking lot when it was all over.

“I knew you’d be there. Aye, I knew it,” he said, beaming.

“Well, I’m glad you and Muriel knew it. I just wish someone could have told me earlier so I didn’t have to spend a sleepless night wrestling with a dilemma that was already resolved.” I said it with a smile.

Angus drove Muriel home. I got into the front seat of the Taurus and dialled Bradley Stanton, a man who doesn’t apply antiperspirant without first checking polling data. Take-no-prisoners partisan politics runs in his veins and oozes from his every pore. I owed the centre a call about Angus and this little change in plans, before they read it in the papers.

Bradley and I had locked horns quite a few times over Angus McLintock’s rare take on politics and public service. I wasn’t looking forward to continuing our tussles but you take the bad with the good, I guess. To be clear, Bradley is the bad. He walks around all day, every day, with a Bluetooth earpiece lodged in his ear canal so he doesn’t waste any of his valuable time unholstering his cellphone and raising it to the side of his head. He answered on the first ring.

“Stanton!” he blasted in his clipped, drill-sergeant tone.

“Addison!” I mimicked, immediately regretting it.

“Very funny, jackass. Just calling to say goodbye to all this?”

“Actually, Bradley, I wish that were why I was calling. There’s been a slight and unexpected turn of events. I wanted to let you know that Angus had such a good time on the Hill that we’ve just announced he’s seeking the Liberal nomination in C-P and will run for re-election.” Three, two, one …

“What the fuck, Addison! I thought you and your noble warrior would take the hint and get the hell off the field when the opportunity presented itself. You told me yourself you were done! Why would McLintock put himself, and all of us, through that sanctimonious, ‘do the right thing’ stuff all over again? It’s getting old. It’s time to walk away, Addison. Just walk away.”

This was why I’d needed to leave politics in the first place. Perish the thought that our party might, just once, give the “do
the right thing” approach a try.

“I’m as surprised as you are, Bradley. And I’ve kept a well-travelled piece of Swedish meatball to prove it.”

“Meatball? You lost me.”

“Forget it. Look, you know that this is still a deep blue riding, and winning it again would mean a second lightning strike,” I reminded him.

“You know the party’s constitution gives the Leader the authority to appoint candidates. We may just throw someone else in C-P,” Bradley threatened.

Ah, the old cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face gambit. I was ready for that one.

“You can put away the big guns, Bradley. We both know that Angus is the only candidate who stands even the slightest chance of keeping C-P red. We need this seat.”

I let the angry silence simmer for a moment or two before changing course.

“What have you heard on the street about any Tory candidates?” I inquired. “We’ve just heard a rumour that I didn’t like very much.”

“You don’t want to know. I’ve heard only one name and it keeps coming up over and over again from different sources.” Stanton paused for dramatic effect. “The Flamethrower.” Bradley heard my sharp intake of breath and waited to let the name sink in. “So you’d better trick out your guy McLintock in some asbestos underwear, Danny boy, it’s going to be a wild ride.”

“So it’s really true, Emerson Fox is coming out of the backrooms to run?”

“That’s the word. Have a nice day.” Stanton hung up.

Emerson Fox. The Flamethrower. Shit. Fox had been a backroom commander of the Tory election machine for nearly forty years. He earned his nickname by pioneering and perfecting what he called “scorched earth negative campaigning.” In Canadian politics, whenever any candidate “goes negative” and tosses mud, or worse, in the general direction of his or her opponent, they
really should send Emerson Fox a royalty cheque. When Fox figured out the power of negative campaigning and first deployed it strategically in a federal election twenty-five years ago, his colleagues in the Tory war room gave him the name Flamethrower. It stuck, as all perfect nicknames do. Frankly, I thought Flamethrower didn’t quite capture Fox’s power and ferocity. But “thermonuclear bomb” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. His specialty was invasive and intensive research on his opponents, stopping just short of B&E and wiretapping. Richard Nixon is one of Fox’s heroes. The point is to uncover even the slightest indiscretion in his opponent’s lifetime so it could be trotted out in mid-campaign. It didn’t have to be anything too serious. Fox’s theory was that you didn’t have to release incriminating photos of a candidate snorting cocaine while robbing a convenience store in the company of his kids’ scantily clad sixteen-year-old babysitter to have an impact on the campaign. Rather, you really only had to sow and nurture just one seed of doubt in a voter’s mind as to the candidate’s morality or integrity.

One of Fox’s Tory candidates had famously come from twenty points back to win a riding after it came to light that the Liberal incumbent MP had passed his Royal Conservatory of Music Grade 8 Piano exam by letting his more talented twin brother play the test piece in his place when they were both fourteen years old. That’s all the Flamethrower needed. How did he know about the incident? One of his attack dog researchers had interviewed two of the Liberal MP’s high school hockey teammates who had heard the story and laughingly passed it on as a great joke. No joke. To add insult to injury, when the MP admitted the story was true and apologized, the Royal Conservatory actually stripped him of his Grade 8 certificate. It was over then and there.

If there were something to find, a hidden illness, a padded resumé, a shoplifting charge, an illicit affair, a quirky interest in hamsters, or a shoe fetish, Fox would sniff it out and blow the lid off it in public. He earned his nickname every
campaign, leaving a string of singed and charred Liberal candidates in his wake.

Coincidentally, I’d just finished reading Fox’s autobiography, creatively entitled
Flamethrower
, featuring the catchy subtitle
Going Negative and Winning in Canadian Politics
. In the book, he lays out his theory of negative campaigning and illustrates it with enough examples to turn the most ardent and idealistic optimist into a jaded quivering heap of cynicism. Bradley Stanton kept a copy of the book on his bedside table where he read a passage from the Fox gospels every morning.

I knew that Emerson Fox had retired several years earlier and lived just inside the C-P boundary in the northeast corner of the riding. It never occurred to me that he’d ever come out of retirement, and certainly not to stand as the candidate. And why would it? He’d always inhabited the dimly lit and smoke-choked backrooms. I didn’t feel so good. I knew that sometimes Fox would embarrass his opponent by revealing something untoward about the campaign manager. I wondered if Fox knew about the naked woman I’d sketched on the back of my arithmetic notebook in Grade 3. I’d been sent to the principal’s office for that. My mind automatically turned to what key messages I might employ to explain my sexist scrawlings. Not good for the manager of a candidate whose late wife is a bona fide feminist icon.

The Flamethrower. Great. Just great.

After changing my still damp clothes, I stopped by Words, Cumberland’s only bookstore, and picked up several copies of
Flamethrower
. Pete1, Pete2, Angus, Muriel, and Lindsay would need to read it. Know thine enemy. After lunch at my desk in the Angus McLintock constituency office in Cumberland, I made a careful review of the campaign file I’d compiled from the October election. Then I ducked out again to make one more stop.