You get to leave power in one of two ways.

One, you get to leave on your own two feet, at a time and place of your choosing.

Or, two, you leave in a pine box.

The latter happens when politicians start to believe their own bullshit. The latter happens when politicians gorge themselves on the pap that is being served up to them by their servile stafflings, the ones who depend upon said politicians for a paycheque. The latter happens when a politician starts to lose touch with real people, and is only hanging out with Deputy Ministers and people who are on the payroll.

Kathleen Wynne, who I like as a person – even though she didn’t even deign to respond to my long-ago offer (and that of not a few others) to help – did not leave when she could have and should have. By default, she chose the pine box.

It isn’t going to be pretty.

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It was uplifting and unbelievably sad, all at the same time. Jim Watson and I eulogized our friend, or tried to. I was okay, until the end. It was hard.

Some coverage, here. I am officially spent.

While the funeral drew politicos of many stripes, the duo of Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson and lawyer, strategist and pundit Warren Kinsella were the self-declared “Liberal quota” on the eulogy stage.

The pair recalled their friendship with Brown during their youth at Carleton University.

“We would always greet each other with ‘Senator,’ no matter where we were,” said Watson.

Kinsella recalled how Brown, in their student government days, had a motion passed declaring Carleton “a communism-free zone.”

“I would now advise, on behalf of Gordie, that any New Democrats who received a degree from Carleton University after 1984 possess an illegal document and should turn themselves in to the authorities,” he joked.

Kinsella and Watson also recalled the group stealing a fake cruise missile from a peace protest camp on Parliament Hill.

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The Hot Nasties were a first-wave Calgary punk band who (improbably) have had their stuff covered by the likes of the Palma Violets and Nardwuar, and praised by the frontmen for Fucked Up and the Pursuit of Happiness.  When we were together, however, we didn’t have any famous friends.  We put on some shows, we put out a couple records, and – properly – we flamed out in 1980.

Nearly four decades later, we’re back!  Ras Pierre and me – along with Bjorn von Flapjack III, Rockin’ Al Macdonald and Jake Kirbie – are the new Hot Nasties, and we’ve put together a happenin’ four-song EP, The Ballad of the Social Blemishes EP.  It contains live versions of Teenage Lament and Fashion Show at CJSW in Calgary, the all-new Hey There Girl, and the new new tune, The Ballad of the Social Blemishes.  It’s about our departed pal, Tom Wolfe, who was the manager of the Blems and our high school co-conspirator.

The record is available on the world’s greatest punk label, Ugly Pop, here.  It’s a bargain and will be worth millions when me and Ras Pierre commence our dirt nap.

Herewith, too, is the world premiere of the video for that song – featuring a swaggering Ras Pierre, a bespectacled me, a sleepy Rockin’ Al, Rachel Notley’s former Chief of Staff John Heaney, and a leaping and cavorting Terry “Lost and Profound” Tompkins.  That’s Tom Wolfe at the end, after our epic show at Bishop Carroll in 1978.  Bjorn gave the video a very powerful ending.

We miss Tom and salute him. Now, go pogo!

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And here, to celebrate, is a snippet from my column next week:

Doug Ford – who I know and like, full disclosure – is not a professional politician.  He may have been a city councillor for a single term, but he is as far from a professional politician as one can get.  He does not have anywhere near the experience that Ontario Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne and Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath have.  Not even close.

Unlike the other two, he has never led a political party before.  Unlike the other two, he has never ruled a caucus before.  Unlike the other two, he has never participated in a leader’s debate before last Monday.

But he’s still winning, and he’s winning.  Media polls even suggest he has a twenty-point lead.  Internal party polling, meanwhile, suggests that the Grits are heading towards third party status.  And perhaps no party status at all.

How could such a thing happen to the once-mighty Ontario Liberal machine?  Three reasons.  One, Kathleen Wynne needed to take a walk in the proverbial snow way back in 2017.  Two, the Grits needed to jettison the profligate Martinite crew around Wynne – the ones who destroyed the federal Liberal party a decade ago.  Three, they needed to be infused with new blood and new faces. 

They didn’t do any of those things.

Traditional political campaigns do not work against populists. 

Populists possess an extraordinary magical power: they are able to transform an attack on them into an attack on those who support them.  And that is why virtually everything Kathleen Wynne said to Doug Ford in that first leaders’ debate last week – that he doesn’t understand how government works, that he doesn’t have experience, that he doesn’t get it, that he is out of his depth, blah blah blah – ricocheted off of him and onto the unhappy people who support him.  And thereby wedded them more closely to their man, Doug Ford.

An attack on Doug Ford, you see, is an attack on them. 

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Who won the @CityNews #ONPOLI leaders debate:

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) May 7, 2018

• Doug Ford needed to (a) be standing at the end of the debate, and (b) keep his cool.  He did both.  Win.
• Andrea Horwath needed to (a) remind people that she existed, and (b) sound like she knew what she is talking about.  She did both.  Win.
• Kathleen Wynne needed to (a) not sound like a Deputy Minister and (b) remember she is fighting for her life, and kick the living shit out of her two opponents.  She did neither.  Fail.
• TV is 70 per cent how you look.  Doug looked nervous at the start, but less so as the show went on.  Andrea looked like she was having fun.  Kathleen looked like she was the meat in the sandwich, stuck between two opponents – and her suffragette outfit made her looked washed out on the CITY-TV set.
• TV is 20 per cent how you sound.  Doug sounded scripted at the start and the finish – he (like most populists) is better speaking extemporaneously.  Andrea sounded like she’s been preparing for four years for that debate, and totally confident.  Kathleen sounded like a bureaucrat.
• TV is 10 per cent what you say.  Doug wanted to gently suggest Kathleen is a fibber (“disingenuous,” six million times) and remind everyone about the Hydro exec schmozzle (“six million dollar man,” six million times).  Andrea said she had ideas – and people like ideas. Kathleen said stuff you’d expect a policy wonk to say (see above).
• Winners: Doug won by not losing.  Andrea won by (finally) being seen and heard.
• Losers: CITY-TV’s constant cutaways were irritating and let the politicians off the hook.  The production was a bit amateurish.  Meanwhile, Kathleen lost because she didn’t connect.  Don’t believe me?  Check out my Highly-Scientific™ Poll, above: my dog Roxy topped her!

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