The politics of politics: my first nomination campaign
Supporting the one who beat us
After the 2006 election, with the Liberals in opposition and Martin out as leader, Guelph MP Brenda Chamberlain let it be known that she would not run again, ultimately resigning before the next general election, effective April 7th, 2008. This opened the door for a nomination race through 2007 for an eventual byelection.
[ Continued from Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 ]
At the beginning, Marva Wisdom, who I had met for the first time in my brief appearance on Brenda’s 2000 re-election campaign, was the only candidate I was aware of in the race. I got to know her through the riding association, which I had joined through my increasingly active support of Stéphane Dion’s leadership, and in December I drove her and two other community activists, Magee Maguire and city councillor Maggie Laidlaw, who were backing David Orchard’s movement to support Dion, from Guelph to Montreal for the 2006 leadership convention. Spending 6 hours in a car with someone is a good way of learning about them, and I eagerly endorsed her and offered to help her campaign.
The help I offered was not especially useful, but I did not realise or understand that until my own nomination race seven years later. I was, however, enthusiastic, attending her meetings, taking photos and videos of her at events, and making her a simple website. It was only in the final meeting planning out the nomination day strategy that I realised that my role was not significant. It was the mark of an excellent leader to make me feel like I had mattered when I, quite frankly, had not.
Early on, I was kind of star-struck by Marva. I had met a few people in public life before, but never to the point of them knowing me, too. One day, Marva recognised my reaction and told me: “politicians put their pants on one leg at a time, just like you do.”
It was a plainly obvious yet eye-opening statement. People in public life are no different from anyone else. Once I internalised that simple idea, I would never again feel intimidated or shy to meet anyone in particular in the future, and have since become generally unimpressed by people with fancy titles if their skills don’t live up to them.
I was only vaguely aware of prominent Guelph attorney Frank Valeriote, at the time, having encountered him only once before, yelling at someone about something during the Delegate Selection Meetings for the leadership convention the previous year, where he was serving as the riding’s returning officer, leaving me with a poor first impression.
Valeriote was the other serious candidate in the race, with John Williams and Wendy Powell rounding out the ballot. Valeriote had the backing of the significant Italian community and came from a family with deep roots in the city. Marva was a more recent immigrant whose support came from passionate activism, and who had recently served as the party’s National Policy Chair.
Near the end of the nomination race, I met Frank at a public meeting in the south end of the city related to some kind of community planning and, by chance, we sat next to each other and kind of hit it off. My first impressions of him shattered, I began to like and respect him, though still loyally felt Marva was the better person for the job.
At the nomination meeting, it quickly became clear that Marva was the other candidate, not Frank, as literal busloads of people arrived at the Guelph Legion hall to support him. Marva’s supporters came in large numbers — over 90% of her signed up members showed up to vote, unheard of in nomination races — but it was not enough. During the meeting I asked Kevin, one of Marva’s senior campaign advisors, what he thought. “Well, I don’t think we won,” he observed wryly over a cigarette, sitting on the steps behind the Legion.
He was right. Frank easily won the nomination by a factor of somewhere north of three-to-one. I saw a bitterness in Marva’s volunteers that I did not anticipate, but I was a Liberal partisan, not only a Marva supporter, and I went over to warmly congratulate Frank on his win and offer my unconditional support.
Little did I know that that simple move would ultimately define the next twelve years of my life.