Pubdate: Sat, 05 Nov 2005
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2005 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Don MacPherson

THINGS CONTINUE TO GO BETTER FOR BOISCLAIR

During the 1993 federal election campaign, The Gazette published a 
profile of Lucien Bouchard, then leader of the Bloc Quebecois, saying 
his dead father had been a truck driver "with a drinking problem."

Nobody noticed, possibly because those four words were the only 
mention in the article of drinking, and they did not appear until the 
15th paragraph.

That is, nobody noticed until Bouchard drew attention to it himself, 
the day after the article was published.

He distributed to the reporters on his campaign tour a letter to the 
newspaper demanding a retraction, and changed his campaign itinerary 
to make an emotional, unscheduled pilgrimage to his old family 
homestead to defend his father's reputation.

Nobody played the victim in politics better than Bouchard. But Andre 
Boisclair, who is on the verge of succeeding Bouchard as leader of 
the Parti Quebecois, shows promise.

Last week, a Radio-Canada television program showed excerpts of 
Governor-General Michaelle Jean's speech at the Parliamentary Press 
Gallery dinner on Oct. 21, when politicians and journalists make 
believe they're stand-up comics at a roast. Among her jokes were a 
few allusions to Boisclair's admitted past cocaine use.

The painfully obvious puns on the words "coke" and "line" were no 
harsher than the editorial cartoons in Quebec newspapers on the same 
topic. But when Boisclair was asked about them this week, instead of 
responding with his usual "no comment" to questions about cocaine, he 
expressed Bouchard-like indignation that the governor-general would 
say such "out-of-place" things in public.

So Boisclair doesn't mind talking about his cocaine use after all, as 
long as it suits his purpose. And here his purpose was to play the victim.

This week's flare-up of the controversy surrounding Boisclair's 
cocaine use actually helped him.

It allowed him to appeal to the sympathy of a public that appears to 
be confused between an election to choose a possible future premier 
and a reality-show popularity contest.

Even the set for the candidates' debates resembles that of a reality 
show, with letters on their lecterns forming the word "La Course" 
(The Race). And since the policies in the recently adopted party 
program leave room only for nuance, the election is not a contest of 
ideas, but of personalities. It's not just the phone-in voting system 
that has turned this election into Sovereignist Idol.

So Boisclair is not a candidate who, as a cabinet minister, was so 
immature, irresponsible, egotistical, arrogant, self-indulgent and 
possibly self-destructive as to use an illegal drug.

Instead, he has been cast in the much more sympathetic role of 
handsome, young, reformed bad boy, who must pass the test of ordeal 
by scrum, tormented by loud, rude and for the most part not terribly 
telegenic journalists. It's not hard to pick the sentimental favourite here.

It's certainly not Boisclair's leading rival, Pauline Marois, whom 
the Boisclair camp deftly put on the defensive by accusing her of 
being behind this week's furor over cocaine, which was really about 
Boisclair's overall personal fitness for leadership.

Marois happened to have been negotiating a stop-Boisclair alliance 
with the four fringe candidates who said Boisclair should either 
answer all questions on his cocaine use or withdraw his candidacy.

But the comments of the otherwise forgettable four on their way into 
this week's debate on education, in answer to reporters' questions, 
actually hurt Marois and helped Boisclair, because they distracted 
attention away from the debate itself.

Even though education is supposed to be Boisclair's strongest issue, 
it was Marois who landed the sound-bite knockout punch when she 
demonstrated his cost figures didn't add up and told him to "go back 
and do your homework again."

In fact, except for when Boisclair took on the party's language hawks 
three weeks ago, his performance in the debates has not been as 
impressive as his polling numbers.

But the shouting about cocaine is drowning out the debates, as well 
as creating a wave of sympathy that's carrying Boisclair to the leadership.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman