Second may be first loser, but it's other things too

I woke up this morning to the phone ringing at ten. It was one of my election volunteers, one who mostly did nothing, except torment the vulnerable members of my team by finding their weak spot and poking at it.

He wanted to speak to the woman of the house where I was staying.

I said she was still in bed. I didn’t mention that he had woken me up, as I couldn’t make that sentence yet, never mind say it.

You tell her that A* Mc****, her first cousin wants to talk to her now.

This in a really peremptory manner that let me know the dislike was mutual.

Half asleep, really annoyed, and quite delighted not to have to be nice to him despite the fact that he didn’t pull his weight anymore, I just hung up.

And went back to sleep. A couple of minutes later, after he’d hopped round his living room in rage a few times, he called back.

This time he woke the woman of the house and she took the call.

But I got up anyway.

Meanie – depriving me of that precious lie-in, I thought.

Turns out his sister had died.

Ooops.

Anyways, it’s over.

OVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVEROVER!!!!!!

I am home in Halifax after a long, long drive back from Cape Breton which thankfully I got to share with my colleague and good friend Swampy (remind me to tell you why he’s called Swampy one day) after picking him up from the Tim Horton’s on Exit 21 an hour and a half late.

Bless him, he didn’t say a word.

Swampy did E-Day in his home riding of Pictou East. Which he won as I knew he would as he is a genius at that kind of thing. But we had a good chat about why my candidate didn’t win and I feel much better now.

That’s right.

My candidate didn’t win.

The incumbent held his seat by 1,100 votes.

http://www.cbc.ca/nsvotes2006/riding/023/
I was one devastated little Queenie last night. We knew about halfway through the boxes. But we had to sit there and take the beating.

Her grace was what saved me.

Up to the church hall then for the party which was a non-starter of course but I got to see a bit of the party in Halifax on tv. And learned that my home riding of Halifax Citadel went NDP to Leonard, who’s a good friend at this stage, what with canvassing since October with him.

And the NDP is up five seats.

And all my politicians got home safely.

We own Metro. Metro is Halifax Regional Municipality and the surrounding ridings.

The more urbanised Nova Scotia gets, the better we do.

The Liberals are in complete disarray. Their leader didn’t win a seat and said he was through with it.

The Tories lost four seats to us and have only 23 seats.

But they will form the next government.

And when my candidate made her thank you speech and said lovely things about me and the campaign manager, it was all I could do not to cry.

I bolted into the ladies and looked at my face under a strong light for the first time in about three weeks.

Ewwwww.

Need a facial real bad.

I mean real bad.

A five week diet of Tim Hortons doughnuts, coffee, cigarettes and take away has not given me the skin of a maiden. More like a midden.

But the benefit of not being in government is that I’ll have time to heal and get back to full health again.

My back is in bits.

Two weeks of a 5’ 10” girl sleeping in a 5’8” bed with a footboard, plus three weeks of working at a low desk while sitting on a conference chair, plus all the driving, plus no exercise has done for it.

Yoga class next week. Some soothing stretching is needed.

But my candidate got 29% of the vote. We pulled a hefty percentage of our vote.

And I had a wonderful experience. I learned a lot. I met lots of really interesting new people. I cemented some friendships forever. I found my Cape Breton experience very rewarding. Almost spiritual in a way that I cannot put my finger on. But it was a combination of spending time with people who are religious, but all different types, so it wasn’t dogmatic, and the kind of pastoral work I ended up doing in the office as well as working on E-Day.

Although at three am last night, as I was on the beach throwing stones at the moon and yelling at the stars about the unfairness of it all, I didn’t feel this way.

All the what ifs and could bes and should haves.

Did I work my team hard enough, did I train them well enough, did I get enough volunteers, were there people sitting at home wondering why they didn’t get a call to help out on E-Day…?

But you just gotta let them go.

It’s done.

We did eighty drives. We called sixty one polls. We had a team of almost fifty people on the day. We got over 2,000 votes out.

It’s done. I did my best.

The fact that many of the people I had working with me had cancer, or had learning difficulties, or had massive domestic challenges, or had no money, or had nothing else to do except hang around the office all day and chat was not a hindrance. It was part of the challenge of pulling it all together in a seamless piece where everyone felt valued and everyone gave their best. Whatever that was.

My campaign manager was a union guy from Ontario, who has spent the last couple of years organising Walmart workers and was both an inspiration and a hilarious example of how utter calm or sang froid and apoplectic rage or stress can easily co-exist in the same person at the same time.

He was a big man, so that might have helped.

And my candidate and her husband and family were a great example of how to treat your neighbour as yourself.

I learned a lot. I stretched my patience levels out a lot. That can only be a good thing.

I also ran my first E-Day by myself.

But we were up against it.

The old ways.

While I got hassle from the Returning Office for delivering sandwiches and cookies to our poll agents, the Liberal candidate was going round handing his agents envelopes containing $50 (I was told this, I didn’t see it myself).

Maybe that’s why he won.

Even if we had had $2,500 to spend on E-Day we wouldn’t do that. You volunteer for the NDP, you volunteer.

It’s why the Liberals are traditionally strong in Cape Breton. They get you your job, your pension, your compensation. Even if they don’t they pretend they do and some people believe them.

But I think what happened was that the Liberals pulled the heartstrings of Cape Bretoners by talking about emigration and jobs. Not that they actually have a clue how to stop emigration or create jobs. But they struck a chord.

Funny how Charlie Haughey died the day I got shafted by the Canadian equivalent of Fianna Fail.

Well, not me personally.

But he used to talk the same bullshit, didn’t he?

Well, my mother says I should be merciful and I know lots of people who think he was a great man, or an interesting and human character at least.

I just don’t like people like him.

I think if you find a vulnerable person’s weak spot, you should teach them how to cover it or protect it, or heal it. Not stick your fingernail into it.

Anyways, going to read the letter I got from accentmonkey and have a sleep.