April 23, 2008 : Archives

Wanna Be a (Canuck) Politician?
Article:  Sanity Found (Part 3)
Source: The Walrus
By: Barry Campbell

Talk about reality.  “So what’s it like?  I was at the urinal, having a private moment in a too-public life.  I wasn’t sure what the guy next to me was referring to.  ‘What’s it like,’ he asked again, ‘politics?’… Politics distorts you, turns you into a relentless, vote-seeking, attention-craving political animal.”

Oh.  Thank goodness for the civil service.  And for Campbell’s home-spun candor.   I missed the first two parts of this ongoing saga of a Canadian federal politician’s life in the March and April issues (you can pick them up from The Walrus website).

Hey Hillary!  Barack!  Up here!  Canada here!  The great white north!  Check out OUR politics.  A day in the life of … or a life in the day of … Canadian politics.  Here in the land of the federal leadership vacuum. 

Campbell takes us into the reality of being a federal politician.  No sexy political organizers.  No ABC, CBS.  No leadership debates.  No primaries.  No campaign plane.  No nightly polling.  No CNN and best political panel in the world. 

Here we are in the land of door-knocking.   The land of trying to be a weekend parent.  The land of the occasional mini-minute with “the Boss”.

Campbell looks back at his life as a Member of Parliament – in the cold hard light of not being a politician.  In this memoir, and the preceding two, he observes the exhilaration, the frustration, and the stories of a backbench MP.  It is the story of the political life of a simple politician. 

For those of us who are in, or have been in politics, there are many reminders of political reality and the good times and the sad times.  If you know anyone running for office in Canada, provincial or federal, tell them about this memoir.  They should read it.  It is so honest, it hurts. 

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Rating: 5.0 Stars (out of 5)
Reference:  Page 72, May, 2008
Magazine Link:  www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2008.05-politics-barry-campbell-life-in-ottawa-part-iii