A Splendid Bit of Relief from the North

You think Canadian elections are bad?

By LISA VAN DUSEN | September 14, 2008

About the only thing crazier than selling an idea to American voters as, "It's what they do in France" would be pitching an election issue as, "It's what they do in Canada."

Between our crackpot gun laws, our suspiciously free health care system and our girliness about the death penalty, there are zip codes in the United States where "Canadian" is interchangeable with "communist" and to talk any other game would be like putting lipstick on a big slab of Canadian bacon.

But as Barack Obama and John McCain pant incredulously toward the finish line of a race so long it feels like it started before the last election which, in many ways, it did, they should take time to glance northward and get a load of what a civilized campaign looks like.

If a Canadian campaign is like a decathlon, then a U.S. campaign is like a war or, in the case of the last two, a civil war. Because the president of the United States gets to play pin the tail on the Axis of Evil map and invade other countries whenever he wants, making the title a prize awarded only to the victor of a gruelling, harrowing and often surreal trial of superhuman endurance is necessary to deter the squeamish and weed out the weak.

Being prime minister of Canada has more to do with listening to Pierre Trudeau stories at G8 welcoming receptions and not saying the wrong thing about Quebec, so the stakes aren't quite as high, which is why, if it weren't for the economic impact of all the advertising dollars, media overtime and padded catering bills lost, it might all be better settled with an arm-wrestling round-robin. The Canadian Arm Wrestling Federation, whose constitution, btw, could use a notwithstanding clause, (http://www.angelfire.com/sports/ARMWRESTLING/) could officiate.

(From what I've seen in the first week, my money would be on Stephane Dion getting whupped by everyone, including Elizabeth May, then whining interminably to the ref about it.)

Because we have one-tenth the population, that's one-tenth the number of babies to kiss and hands to shake, so one-tenth the amount of time needed to campaign; our two months to their 20.

Except that ours only have to be 36 days and -- other than the eight-week 2006 campaign that included a festive holiday season intermission -- Canada has stuck to that for the past few campaigns.

But compared to an American campaign, even eight weeks is like a day at a spa.

(Having said that, I logged one of those 60-day ones as a 21-year-old junior press aide and it nearly killed me. I broke down halfway through and slid slowly to the floor in the lobby of my sixth Peter Pan Motel, whining like Stephane Dion at an arm wrestling round-robin about just wanting a detachable hanger and a regulation-sized bar of soap. Campaigning, like grief and LSD, is one of those experiences that bring out different things in different people and sometimes you don't know what that'll look like until it's too late.)

By the time the U.S. campaign staggers into its bloodiest stretch in mid-October, Canadians will have already made up their minds. Meanwhile, what the overlap will underscore is that campaigns, even seemingly endless U.S. campaigns, really only happen in the last five weeks anyway.

After all the money spent in the primaries, after all the polls and concessions and debates and, now, after the conventions and the wheeling out of the running mates, all of it will conceivably -- if it doesn't come down to 5,000 lawyers invading one county in southern Ohio -- be settled in a Canadian campaign.

In the case of this U.S. campaign, the long lead time has served to both familiarize voters with an unknown Barack Obama and reassure them about the stamina of a septuagenarian John McCain.

At the same time, the relative hiccup of the final two months between the conventions and Election Day on Nov. 4 works to the advantage of the new unknown, Sarah Palin, since there's only so much familiarizing that can go on during a relative hiccup.

Given what the battlefield will look like by Oct. 15, maybe the only October surprise that could trump Bush's perp-walking Osama bin Laden out of his spider hole would be the promise of new, shorter Canadian-style campaigns.

Just don't say it was our idea.