The High Road (9 page)

“I’ve been thinking a lot about how campaigns are usually run. At the end of the race, our local landfill is the recipient of thousands of cardboard or, worse, plastic lawn signs. I’m not happy
about that and I venture to say that you probably aren’t either. So here’s how we’re going to handle it. We will manufacture no lawn signs. None. If any of you, or any other voters, care to express public support for my candidacy, you have only to tie a red ribbon on your car, or to the tree in your front lawn, or to something in your front window. Just a simple display of red will suffice. Let’s change the way things are done.”

In the last campaign I had brazenly spun our lack of lawn signs as an environmental initiative. At the time, only the most naïve had bought what I was selling. But four months later it turns out it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

With only fifty or so members in attendance, the vote didn’t take long and Angus was acclaimed as the Liberal candidate. It was official. Of course, a Liberal winning in this riding, even Angus McLintock, was still the longest of long shots. No political pundits in their right mind would ever predict a second Liberal victory. The fluke Liberal win last time was such a shock to the local political system that re-electing Angus carried hole-in-one odds. But here we were.

As Angus and I extricated ourselves from the meeting, a group of boisterous women from the Riverfront Seniors’ Residence started to chant “Angus! Angus! Angus! Angus!” They needed only pompoms to consummate the surreal scene. I doubt many other candidates in the country had their own squad of octogenarian cheerleaders. I think Angus was touched by the show of support.

After dinner, I left Lindsay to work on her Master’s thesis as I headed up the path, intent on taking at least one game from Angus.

I had my regular Coke while Angus sipped a third of a tumbler of Lagavulin. I could smell its strong iodine-tinged aroma from my side of the board. Angus had already dismantled me in two games but I was holding my own in game three. I was playing white and had managed to sacrifice a bishop to set up a knight fork that claimed his queen. His queen for my bishop and knight
was a solid return on my investment.

“Well played, laddie!” he thundered. “I must realign my thinkin’ if you’re able to plan and execute a stratagem of that calibre.”

I tried to remain calm but when you take a superior opponent’s queen, it’s cause for celebration. I kept it low key and broke into a disco classic, complete with dancing hands and very rhythmic shoulders.

I crooned “That’s the Way I Like It,” complete with all the jubilant “uh-huhs.” It just wasn’t the same without the mirror ball, but nevertheless it was quite satisfying.

“If you’re going to do that each time you win one of my pieces, I cannae promise you safe passage back to the boathouse.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t imagine I’ll get the chance to do that very often,” I conceded. “Besides, I’ve had many compliments on that number over the years.”

Thirty-two minutes later I finally took him down, confining his king on the back rank with my two rooks. No big celebration this time. That would have been unseemly.

“How is the fair lass Lindsay now that she’s ensconced in the boathouse?”

“She is, quite simply, amazing,” I replied with more emotion than I’d planned on deploying.

“Aye, she is. Providence has shone on you. But she’s not doin’ too badly in your company, I daresay.”

“It’s difficult to explain. We seem to connect on a different plane. It just feels different. Better. Deeper. I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m being clear.”

“You’re comin’ in loud and clear to me.” He paused, but then continued. “Forty years or so ago, I’d probably be describin’ my bond with Marin using similarly vague and imprecise terms,” Angus confided. “It was very odd. I felt utterly changed yet still myself at one and the same time. It was almost as if my life had been fuzzy, slightly out of focus. Marin seemed to adjust my lens so that everythin’ was brighter, sharper, more vibrant and vital.
Where I’d only seen murky shadows, she let me see a riot of colour. Where my view had been cut short, she gave me a distant horizon. I really didnae know what being alive actually meant, until I met her.”

He stopped talking suddenly. I kept my eyes on the river, not daring to look at him. A few minutes passed.

“You dinnae need to attempt to give form and order to that which defies explanation and confounds understandin’. Just let it be. And hold onto it for as long as you can. I’m very happy for you both.”

When clouds blocked the morning sun, it was chilly in the boat-house. Lindsay,
Cumberland Crier
in hand, ran into the room and vaulted back into the double bed like a gymnast off a minitramp, plowing her elbow into my stomach as she came down beside me.

“Oooooff!” was my articulate response as the air left my lungs in a hurry.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry. I thought I was clear of you,” Lindsay said as she rolled and propped herself up on the guilty elbow. “I’m not as coordinated in the air when it’s so frickin’ cold. We really need at least a queen if I’m going to land those safely.”

When you’re unable to breathe, you’re unable to speak. So I just nodded. Lindsay spread out the
Crier
.

“Uh-oh. André has done it again,” she warned.

I turned to scan the front page. Oh good, two photos of Angus. The first covered nearly the whole front page, above the fold. André sure had a knack with a Nikon. There, in full colour, was
Baddeck 1
dragging Angus behind as he looked right at the camera and waved. The caption: the very predictable “What a drag!” Nice. The second picture, as I feared, was a shot of a snow-covered Angus, arms outstretched in apparent political crucifixion as I appeared to attack him with a corn broom. The cutline on it: “McLintock hopes to sweep to victory.” So the headline writer’s a comedian. I rolled back over and managed to groan with what little breath I’d regained.

An hour or so later, Lindsay headed out to the U of O library to work on a paper with a looming deadline. She claimed she was unable to work at home. She said it casually, but I liked the way “home” rolled off her tongue and hung in the air between us.

As soon as Lindsay had gone, I switched into campaign mode and checked in with the two Petes, who were staffing the campaign HQ. All was well. In fact, seven more volunteers had shown up. Muriel was also there helping to slot the new recruits into appropriate roles. She had a gift for identifying those who were cut out for the perils of door-to-door canvassing, and those who should be isolated behind closed doors, licking envelopes and assembling poll kits. I chatted with Muriel for a while after hearing from Pete1. It was actually beginning to feel like a legitimate campaign complete with real volunteers, bad coffee, stale doughnuts, uncomfortable chairs, and riding maps on the wall. But if I didn’t deal with the money situation soon, we’d shortly have another staple of many political campaigns, debt.

I was a few minutes early for my ten o’clock meeting with Angus, but I was keen to get going and I sensed he was too. I knocked on his front door and it swung open before I’d connected on the third rap.

“There you are, laddie, I thought you’d forgotten,” Angus opened. “We’re burnin’ daylight.”

“I’m five minutes early,” I pleaded. “I didn’t want to interrupt your morning primping now that you’re going to be in the public eye at least for the campaign.”

“This is as primped as I get.”

Wonderful. Angus looked as if he’d coiffed his hair and beard by thrusting his head inside a screaming jet engine. He desperately needed his own hair traffic controller.

“Uhmm, I wonder whether we might consider a hair cut and a beard trim, or at the very least some industrial-strength gel?” I ventured, fearing for my safety.

“What are you sayin’, man? My hair has always looked like this. I like it and it takes me no time at all when I get up in the mornin’.”

“You don’t say,” I commented. I corralled my resolve. “Angus, let’s at least try to open a fledgling relationship with a hairbrush of some kind. We want your image to say
principled maverick
. But to those who don’t know you, sometimes your look can veer a little too close to
crazed psychopath
.”

He said nothing but was quite eloquent with the glare he sent my way before turning to a mirror in the hall. I pushed just a bit more.

“Angus, if we scare the voters, or even their children, they’re less likely to mark the little X next to your name on E-day.”

Angus stared at his reflection and sighed.

“All right, all right, you’ve made your point. I’ll think about it,” he concluded. The subject was closed. “So what’s on our agenda? Where do we start, now that I’m runnin’ on purpose this time?”

“Why don’t we cover off some local issues that we’re likely to face in the campaign? Nothing undermines a candidate’s credibility more than being asked a question by a voter and knowing nothing about the topic.”

“Grand. Lead on.”

“Well, the first local issue is plastered all over the front page of today’s
Crier
,” I said as I handed him my copy.

Angus eyed the front page, and dropped onto the fluffy chintz couch, losing his right hand in the morass of his hair.

“Damnation, and the race hasnae even yet started,” Angus groaned. “I’ve tripped over my own feet on the way to the startin’ blocks.”

“Angus, calm yourself. It’s not that bad,” I soothed. “There are many veteran campaigners who think that the worst kind of media coverage is no coverage at all. Here we are on day one of the campaign and you’ve dominated the front page.” I didn’t subscribe to the “all ink is good ink” theory but I wasn’t about to mention that to my candidate.

“Aye, I surely dominated the paper, but as a snow-covered laughin’ stock. I thought I had a good rapport with that Fontaine fellow.”

“Angus, don’t blame this on André. He likes you and respects you. That much I know. But when we offer up shots like these” – I waved my hand over the
Crier
– “his photo editor has no option but to run with them. It’s not André’s call, he just pushes the button. But you have to admit, it’s outstanding news photography.”

I took back the
Crier
. Time to move to safer ground.

“Onwards!” I rallied. “Sanderson Technologies is a great local story and we own it. It showcases your creativity, ingenuity, and foresight.”

“I like the sound of that but what does it all mean?” Angus asked.

“When Norman Sanderson came to see you last October, he was looking for you to deliver federal subsidies to keep his aging shoe factory limping along on fallen arches. The path of least resistance would have been for you to work with the government to get those subsidies, whether or not it was good policy. Knowing it was in fact bad policy, you refused. Instead you persuaded him to stopping making shoes and start manufacturing Professor Khanjimeer’s Internet wave router. It was brilliant, and Sanderson Technologies is now a bona fide high-tech success story, signing new supply contracts every other day. You did that!”

“Well, it was the sensible thing to do. It was obvious!” Angus waved his hand in dismissal.

“Obvious to you, but to most everyone else, you came through with a creative and innovative solution to an intractable industrial-policy dilemma. You cracked it first time out. And the icing on the cake was getting Sanderson to hire the workers displaced when you shut down Ottawa River Aggregate Inc. Talk about a win-win.”

“Fine, but that’s water under the bridge. Cleaner water, I hope, but what’s next?” Angus asked.

“Well, what’s next is, we hit up Norman Sanderson while he’s still flush with gratitude and cash and see whether he’ll spearhead our fundraising efforts. Even without lawn signs to buy,
we’re going to need to raise some cash to finance the campaign.”

“Aye,” grunted Angus, sounding very Scottish. “I’ve precious little to donate.”

“As well, we do need to find something to do with the abandoned aggregate operation. Everybody knows shutting it down was the right thing to do but we just can’t let it sit there as a monument to environmental degradation,” I noted.

“What about that young lad who came in to see us about turnin’ it into an environmental education camp for school kids? I liked that idea.” Angus leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“It’s a great idea if we can help them find some funding to bring the building up to code and get them connected with the schools. I just don’t know what department to hit up for dough.”

“Well, I want to be supportive of this initiative. It feels like shuttin’ down the mill was the easier half of the problem. There’s more to do, and I like the thought of kids learnin’ about the river and sustainable development in a facility that used to dump toxins in the water. It’ll bring home the message.”

Angus and I kicked around a few other local issues, including the deterioration of Cumberland’s roads and the highways leading in and out of it. We worked out some positions and key messages to use.