The High Road (13 page)

The room and the lobby outside were absolutely jammed. There were probably 1,800 or so in the ballroom with at least another 500 trying in vain to get in. I thought back to our modest little community centre meeting that had officially nominated Angus as our party’s candidate. As I counted the many gaudy yellow vests hustling about the ballroom, it occurred to me that the motel staff working this Tory nomination probably outnumbered the full membership of the C-P Liberal Association. Mercifully, the lights finally dimmed and three figures mounted the risers at the front. Emerson Fox and Alden Stonehouse took their seats while the president of the Tory riding association headed to the podium against competing chants of “Flamethrower! Flamethrower!” and “Stonehouse! Stonehouse!” Reverend Stonehouse’s congregation was out in force. Judging on volume and energy, the split in the room seemed about even. The association president looked nervous and held up his hands for quiet. Eventually, I could hear his voice above the roar as I centred him in the shot.

“Please, please, quiet down, quiet down, please. We have a long night ahead of us so the sooner we get to the voting, the sooner we’ll be able to declare our PC candidate.” He paused as the last of the chanting died away. “I’m Herbert Clarkson, president of the Cumberland-Prescott Progressive Conservative Association and I want to welcome you all, new members and old alike, to the official nomination meeting. We are here to accomplish one thing tonight. To elect our standard bearer in this federal election who will then send Angus McLintock back to the engineering faculty at U of O. This riding has always been Conservative and on January 27,” he thundered, “it will be Conservative again!” I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but the crowd went wild.

The president of the riding association then opened the floor for nominations. Both Emerson Fox and Alden Stonehouse were nominated. No one else entered the fray and nominations were officially closed.

In the interests of time, each candidate was given only five minutes to speak. This was a sensible decision. There were likely very few undecided voters in the room so the speeches were really for the media and would have little bearing on who would be the nominated candidate. It made more sense to get the voting started.

With the ballroom lights dimmed, I no longer had to keep my face hidden behind the camera. I straightened up and focused on the podium, keeping a periodic eye on the video camera to make sure I recorded the proceedings. Given that I was masquerading as the media, I felt justified in choosing a few sound bites from the candidates’ addresses rather than inflicting their entire scripts. One can only take so much.

Emerson Fox rose first and approached the podium. His supporters snapped to attention, leapt to their feet, then exploded in a rousing standing ovation. Fox arrived at the mike and lifted both hands in the air trying to kill two birds with one stone: accept the accolades and calm the crowd. It took a while, but eventually he had the floor all to himself.

“Friends, these have been bleak months since the last election when a candidate who abused the democratic process, a candidate who had no intention to serve, a candidate who had no desire to serve, wound up representing one of the great conservative constituencies in Canada. It was an electoral travesty that we must set right on January 27.”

Requisite standing ovation and unrestrained cheering.

“And what do we know about Professor Angus McLintock? Not much. We know he shut down a local plant that had provided jobs for dozens of Cumberland residents for a quarter century. We know he stood between the citizens of this community and their own hard-earned money when he fought the government’s tax cuts. We know he almost single-handedly defeated the duly elected Progressive Conservative government in an act of political conceit and caprice that will cost the taxpayers of this country millions of dollars for a needless election.”

More wild applause and predictable audience gyrations. For strategic reasons, Fox was clearly ignoring his real opponent that night and was targeting Angus for the benefit of the scribes and cameras lined up along the back wall. As rhetoric goes, Fox was making the grade and his supporters were lapping it up.

“What else do we know about Angus McLintock? Well, my friends, we know he was married for nearly forty years to one of the most extreme and fanatical feminists Canada has ever produced, who, if you read what she has written over the years, tried to violently rip apart the very social fabric of our society with her dangerous ideas. That’s what we know about Angus McLintock.”

By this time I was so offended I hadn’t initially noticed Fox’s “to violently rip” split infinitive. I was shouting at the top of my lungs and shaking my fist in outrage until I felt the viselike grip of André Fontaine on my forearm. Thankfully, the crowd was so powered up in their reaction that my lone dissenting voice died in the din.

I should have expected such a malevolent diatribe from Fox. I’d already warned Angus that he was going to have to keep his cool and not take the bait Emerson Fox would surely be offering. But still it caught me off-guard, and I had that bait halfway down my throat before André intervened. He said nothing as he released me. He didn’t have to. Though still fuming, I dipped my head to look through the viewfinder like the other camera guys.

Fox rattled on and never once mentioned Alden Stonehouse. He simply refused to acknowledge his opponent’s existence. It was a common enough strategy, to focus his supporters on the real battle ahead with Angus.

When Alden Stonehouse took the stage, he moved the podium to one side of the risers and took the mike in his hands like an old-time evangelist.

“Whether you’re here to vote for my accomplished opponent or to support me, I can tell you that there is far more that unites us here tonight than divides us. Let’s not squabble among
ourselves when the real enemy is sequestered in his workshop tonight, plotting the continued moral decline of Canadian society. Angus McLintock, an admitted agnostic, in his short time on Parliament Hill has left the people of Cumberland-Prescott to twist in the winds of a recession. It is not what he has done
for
Cumberland-Prescott. No, no. Rather, it’s what he has done
to
Cumberland-Prescott.”

He was a tremendous orator who knew just how to lift his audience with his own inflection. He paced the front of the stage, stopping and turning to face the crowd at dramatic moments when his words really mattered. He spoke quietly at times to draw his listeners forward in their seats. I had to admit, he was good. The Stonehouse contingent was alternately on their feet shouting or sitting transfixed in rapt silence as the preacher-turned-candidate skilfully piloted his rhetorical roller coaster.

“Yes, friends, it’s what Angus McLintock has done to the people of Cumberland-Prescott that brings us here tonight in such numbers. He supported the opening of the Corrections Canada halfway house in Cumberland. He championed it! He even wielded a silver spade at the sod-turning with the Minister. He has opened the gates of our community and invited hardened criminals to live here among us, with our children, with our families. We must stop this heinous act against our community and the social decay it will surely bring.”

Blah, blah, blah. It was nauseating. Yes, he was a great speaker. Yes, the crowd loved him, and even the Fox supporters cheered enthusiastically. But couldn’t anyone see through him? He was a cartoon character, a stereotype, an archetype, and not in a good way. But looking around the room, I was clearly in the minority. The jaded journalists at the back were not taken in. They stood stoic as the crowd celebrated two barnburner speeches.

Fifteen minutes later, at 7:40, the voting booths opened in a separate room down the hall. The lineup snaked all the way out to the motel lobby. The voting at the normal garden-variety nomination meeting took about an hour. This was no ordinary
meeting. By the time the haggard president of the riding association took the stage again with a sheet of paper in his hands, nearly five hours had passed. Most of the crowd had gone home and were probably already asleep. But about 500 diehard supporters, evenly split between Fox and Stonehouse, remained to the bitter end.

“Thank you for your patience. I can report that more members voted in this nomination meeting than ever before in the storied history of this association. There were 1,956 ballots cast and 24 ballots spoiled. So, 967 votes are required to achieve the 50 per cent plus one threshold and win the nomination. With 1,083 votes, the official candidate for the Progressive Conservative Party in Cumberland-Prescott will be … Emerson Fox!”

Bedlam. It was a crushing disappointment for the Stonehouse supporters. Many were in tears as the Fox fans square-danced in the aisles. Emerson Fox and Alden Stonehouse made their way to the stage. While the margin of victory had been slim, it was not slim enough to warrant a recount. After Emerson Fox delivered a mercifully brief victory speech, during which André had to caution me only once against excessive eye-rolling, Alden Stonehouse sought the mike.

“I congratulate Emerson Fox on his victory tonight and I wish him well in the campaign. But not too well. You see, I made a promise to my supporters that I would fight the daily assaults on the moral fabric of this community with every ounce of strength and every breath I have left within me. I hereby declare that I will run as an independent conservative in this election. Even as we speak, and in regretful anticipation of my defeat tonight, my nomination papers are being delivered to the Chief Electoral Officer. I’ll be on the campaign trail bright and early tomorrow morning.”

The Stonehouse disciples still in the room erupted and shot from down and out to do-si-do in two seconds flat. As the implications of Stonehouse’s announcement sunk in, the Fox folks seemed intent on switching from square-dancing to
slam-dancing. In short order, several Stonehouse supporters found themselves laid out on the carpet. Fox himself looked as if he’d been punched in the stomach. André told me afterwards that I’d just stood there through it all, pumping my fists in the air and shouting “Yes, yes, yes, yes …” until he restrained me, lest I were to blow my own cover. Two conservatives in the race were much, much better than one.

I rolled over and rested my hand in that amazing little curve that linked Lindsay’s waist and hip as she snoozed on her side next to me. She sighed, in a good way, in a contented way. The morning light squeezed into the room along the borders of the blinds.

“I promised Muriel I’d meet with her this morning without Angus,” I whispered.

“Hmmm. That sounds suspicious. What’s up?” croaked Lindsay in full Brenda Vaccaro morning voice.

“Not sure. She said something about the high road still having gutters,” I said. “Not sure what that means.”

“If I know Muriel, I think it means she’s about to get her elbows up in the campaign without involving our candidate,” Lindsay opined.

Muriel wasn’t where I usually found her by the window overlooking the river. One of the front desk staff directed me to the card room down the hall from the main lobby. She stood at the front of the room before about eight fellow residents who were so focused on Muriel they didn’t seem to notice my arrival at the back. Muriel had written in her shaky hand the word GOUT on the white board beside her. I didn’t know that Muriel was an expert on gout but I sat down and tuned in.

“Our only chance to win this riding is if Angus continues to practise his unique brand of politics. He may well squeak out a victory if he avoids the traps Emerson Fox is laying,” Muriel
opened. “Fox is coming after Angus with both barrels blazing. Angus is going to be pilloried. If Angus takes the bait, responds in kind, and jumps into the gutter to duke it out with Fox on his own terms, we will lose, sure as guns. Angus has to change the game and try to force the debate to a higher level. But, but, I still think the wily Fox deserves his comeuppance,” Muriel stated.

“Hear, hear,” voices in the group replied.

I didn’t like the sound of this but still wasn’t sure where it was going, and what it had to do with gout. In fact, what the hell is gout anyway? Muriel’s voice brought me back.

“Angus can know nothing of this. He must be protected.” Muriel looked my way then. “I see that our stalwart campaign manager, Daniel, has arrived. He’ll just be staying for a few moments but then I’m going to throw him out. I don’t even want Daniel knowing about the shadowy workings of this elite political SWAT team.” She kept her eyes on me. Those in the room who could turn their heads far enough around looked at me too. I started to put two and two together, but I still missed the gout connection. Muriel took over again.