Clean slate

Richler's electoral run an entertaining underdog story

Reviewed by Sheilla Jones

Winnipeg Free Press, Books, D20, October 29, 2016

The Candidate: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail

By Noah Richler

Doubleday Canada, 368 pages, $34

To quote Hunter S. Thompson on American politics from his book Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72: "A sense of humor is the main measure of sanity. But who can say for sure?"

It would seem a sense of humour helped to keep novice candidate Noah Richler going as an NDP candidate in Canada’s 2015 federal election campaign. But his sanity did take a beating; by the time he lost resoundingly to Liberal incumbent Carolyn Bennett in the Toronto-St. Paul’s riding, he realized he’d taken it all too personally.

"There’s a slightly out-of-body sensation to being walloped as we had," says Richler in The Candidate: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail as he sits with one of his campaign team members, "and the two of us were like a couple of rehab vets languishing in the anonymity of a city knowing nothing of our pain."

The Candidate is an entertaining and sometimes emotional journey into the inner workings of a federal election campaign, but it is also a cautionary tale. Politics, especially at the federal level, is an unforgiving place for novices, and that’s exactly what author and broadcaster Richler was. He had no political experience of any kind, other than that of a journalist, but he was offended enough by the government of Stephen Harper to run for office. He did consider the Liberals and Green Party, but finally signed up with the New Democrats in the spring of 2015.

Naive optimism can carry an untested candidate a long way. In Richler’s case, he was taking a quixotic run for a federal seat comfortably held by Bennett for 19 years and never, ever held by a New Democrat.

Part of the appeal of Richler’s recounting of his run for office is that, as a reader, you know you’re cheering for an enthusiastic but inexperienced underdog who is learning the hard way about antagonizing the ruthless war rooms of spin doctors and fixers, or how best to respond to the vicious power of online shaming for past comments unearthed on Facebook and Twitter. Through it all, the reader can practically hear a Greek chorus of hardened campaign operatives darkly muttering, "Amateurs! Amateurs!"

Cynicism is a highly communicable disease in politics, and Richler was not immune. He started wondering if party leaders really believed they were bringing "change" to Ottawa.

"The messages of Hope and the Change that returns the gift of it to us (Clinton’s, Obama’s, Trudeau’s and Mulcair’s pitch) or, conversely, the stoking of fear that society will not be secure, or the economy not soundly managed (Bush’s, Harper’s, Trump’s), are so inveterate we should be embarrassed that we are not yet inured."

Canadians bought into Trudeau’s pitch; we can only hope American voters don’t drown in an ocean of political embarrassment before their presidential campaign is over.

When the Canadian election was over in October 2015 and Richler’s "own arrogant ego" wounded by a resounding rejection, he thought he was finished. "I felt retired. Done. Didn’t think I’d even write anymore."

Fortunately, Richler has kept writing and has delivered a bridge-burning, name-dropping insider’s tale of campaigning in Toronto. Keep an eye out for charming nuggets of Canadiana. For instance, he writes about his early years in Montreal as a heroin addict (and son of renowned novelist Mordecai) who pulled himself together and landed at Oxford University by age 24.

"I am baffled," he writes about Oxford, "at colleagues whose kind I knew back home suddenly dressing in tuxedos and toting delicate glasses of sherry in hockey-player hands that previously held brown stubbies."

The Candidate bears only a passing resemblance to Thompson’s Fear and Loathing. Richler avoids the harshness and raw vulgarity that Thompson was notorious for, but can sometimes sound rather self-regarding.

Richler has certainly retained his sense of humour, but the measure of his sanity remains unclear. The book ends with a supporter asking him, "Will you run again?" It goes unanswered, leaving open the possibility of another foray into campaigning.

But would another political party take him on after reading this tell-all tale?

Sheilla Jones is a Winnipeg author who has great respect for election campaign workers who pound the pavement and bruise their knuckles knocking on doors in support of their candidate.