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ANALYSIS OF A SMEAR
Canadian Alliance candidate Kevyn Nightingale found himself at the centre of a major controversy in
the recent federal election when he was accused of calling an openly gay opponent a "statistical
deviant". Now, he explains his side of the story - and why it might be enough to turn you off of electoral politics forever. Looking back, can you recall what the 2000 federal election was about? What, in other words, was the ballot question? In 1984, it was the tired and arrogant Liberal government. In 1988, it was free trade. In 1993, it was the economy and Brian Mulroney. In 1997, it was pretty much a cakewalk, with no real question. I submit that this past year, the Liberals did something never before done in Canadian  political history - they made the Opposition the ballot question. That question, then, was, "Who are you afraid of?" Or, put more directly, "We know that you don't like us, but we  think you'll dislike them (the Canadian Alliance) more."A pretty nifty trick. But to do it, they had to turn the Alliance into a big scary monster -and that's exactly what they did. Ever wonder how to trap a political opponent? Well, here's a story from the victim's viewpoint, and it might be enough to keep you out of electoral politics forever. More than anything else, it shows how easy it is to demonize the other side - and how hard it can be to crawl out of that trap.
The setup
This past September, I was on CBC's political-debate show, Counterspin. I had done this sort of thing several times before, with a reasonable degree of success. The topic of the show was the conflict between social conservatism and liberalism in the Canadian Alliance. As the policy co-chair for the United Alternative, I had experienced these conflicts first-hand, and my committee had written the Alliance's Declaration of Policy. As a socially liberal member of the Alliance, I was there to represent that point of view. There was a social conservative, and two left-wing guests on the show. Avi Lewis,  Counterspin's host, is a noted socialist. Obviously, this was dangerous territory. Now, Counterspin is a live show, which means that there are no re-takes. Of course, early on in the show, while praising Canada's "diversity", I became a little tongue-tied and used the word "deviance". A huge smile spread across Avi Lewis' face, and he  jumped all over me for about sixty seconds. In the final analysis, though, everyone understood what was meant, so we all had a  good laugh, and the issue was dropped. Thankfully, the rest of the show went a little  more smoothly.  Just before the election campaign, I was nominated as the Canadian Alliance candidate for the riding of Willowdale, in suburban Toronto. By this time, I had more  media experience than any of the Alliance's other candidates in the Greater Toronto  Area, so I was scheduled to make a lot of media appearances on behalf of the party.  Pretty cool for a green-eye-shade accountant, eh?
The sting
Almost immediately, I was asked to appear on Studio 2 (TV Ontario's competitor to   Counterspin). They have a regular political panel, and Randall Pearce (the PC  candidate for Toronto Centre-Rosedale) and I were asked to discuss the future of the  Canadian "right". It was a fun 25 minutes.  Unfortunately, our segment was a half- hour long.  Randall Pearce, for those unfamiliar, is openly gay. He repeated my quote from  Counterspin, taking it wildly out of context. The objective was to paint me as ahomophobe, and by extension, the entire Canadian Alliance as intolerant. Basically, it was a replay of Groucho Marx' "Say the secret word of the day". I wouldn't give him the pleasure - at least my media training got me that far. At the exact same time, John Laschinger (the Tories' national campaign manager, and  a guy I've known for 26 years) was on CTV Newsnet in Calgary, reporting that I had  called Randall "deviant" - on camera. Obviously, I hadn't. Welcome to conspiracy-land.   Immediately after taping, and off-camera, Randall Pearce demanded an apology for the  first use of the word, which I promptly gave. I hadn't meant to offend gay people, as anyone who has read my recent National Post article on Registered Domestic  Partnerships (December 12) would know full well.  It was when the cameras were off that I caught hoof-in-mouth disease, which is known   to happen to politicians who are one step to smart for themselves. I felt it incumbent  upon me to explain myself further, and to tell Randall that "statistically, [gay people] are deviant". I was careful to emphasize the word "statistically", and explained that I meant  simply non-conformist; no more, and no less.
My explanation would have been fine had I been a math or English professor, but politics is a different game entirely. Randall had gotten me to say the bad word, and   that was all that he had wanted. Within two hours he (and other campaign workers) had  called every major media outlet, and I was left trying to defend the indefensible.
The moral of the story
Every political party has its bete-noir. With the Liberals, it's arrogance and graft. With the NDP, it's "tax-and-spend". With us  in the Alliance, it's intolerance. When a person with connections to a party commits an  error, however minor, that reinforces the stereotype in the public's mind - or can be spun that way - it's time for smear-city.  For example, when Jean Chrétien, a political pro, suggests, on the record, that people  would have been better Canadians if they had gone to university, he gets an easy ride. "He doesn't really mean that", they say. And, perhaps more relevant in this context, when two of his veteran MPs regularly use the word "deviant" to describe homosexuals, and intend a pejorative meaning, they're mostly ignored.
That courtesy was not extended to me, a rookie candidate. I failed to understand that  politically, their errors don't count the way that mine do. Since I'm a member of the  Alliance, I get held to a higher standard on these issues.   What made it worse was that we were in the heat of an election campaign, helping to  make this a no-win situation for us. The party didn't want to focus on this issue, which meant that I couldn't mount a full defense. Our strategy was "make the story die" - which  it did, after about a week. If you've ever watched a courtroom drama, you know that lawyers are not allowed to as  questions like "when did you stop beating your wife?" In politics (or at least in this past election), this was the only question really asked.
The future
In the United States, where there is rarely much of an ideological difference between  candidates, this type of campaigning is common. She wins because, to the electorate, she smells less bad than he does. There are only two ways to deal with this phenomenon, and your first option is to argue  philosophy instead of personality. If your position is different enough from that of your  opponents, then you have a chance of winning. That, for example, is what worked for  the Ontario Tories in 1995.
Or, alternatively, you can go with the flow, and be just as aggressively negative as your  opponents. To that end, throwing mud can be fun - particularly if you're better at it than your competitors.
The problem, of course, is that some of it can stick to you.