I WAS really cruel and rude to Prime Minister Kim Campbell on her way up. i wrote awful things about the helicopter deal she was pushing, made smart-ass remarks about her marital woes, bugged her about low-level military flights over In- nu lands in Labrador, suggested her big confession about pot as being cynically manipulative, and accused her of fascist tendencies. Now I’m beginning to think: Jeez, there goes my chance of a Senate appointment, I'll bet. So, with that in mind, let me try to wiggle and squirm into the new PM's good graces. Maybe she'll change her mind, eh? How am I going to do this? Well, first, I'll say that | feel damn sorry for her. Let me hasten to add that { felt sorry for John Turner and Joe Ciark and Dave Barrett, too. It was their egos making them do it, of course, and so one manages 10 control the flow of tears. But still, their suffering was palpable, It is in this sense that { feel sorry for Canada’s first woman prime minister. If she loses the election, what a face-loss to have to deal with! All this time and energy so far will have been a big setup for a gigan- tic fall. And if she wins, the problem is that within months, she'll be roundly loathed from coast to coast. There's no way around it. Being quickly loathed is a side-effect of electoral victory by the big players nowadays Look at the new leaders: John Major, already the most un- popular British prime minister in 50 years of polling; Bill Clinton at the lowest point of any freshly elected president; Mike Harcourt and Bob Rae, to mention a few others, staring appalling polls in the face. It seems the poor lads barely got into office and the masses turned on them. Is it, in fact, television’s fault? Or, more broadly, the media’s? Undoubtably, exposure in itself . is ultimately fatal. The old public relations line us- ed to be, ‘‘It doesn’t matter what they say about you, as Jong as they spell the name right.’”’ Now it seems to go something like: ‘It doesn’t matter how they spell your name, they'll still think something nasty about you.’ Getting out of the limelight helps. Look how the much-hated Trudeau, who took his walk in the snow knowing full well he’d lose if he tried for it again, is today STRICTLY PERSONAL viewed with mute admiration and fondness. It is enough to make one gag. I think I have the auswer, or part of it, as to why the electorate is so ‘‘volatile,’’ as the pollsters say. First of all, let's deal with the obvious, Of course it has plenty to do with anger at joblessness, at taxes, at bureaucratic inertia, at patronage, and, especially, at the flip-flops our leaders keep mak- ing. Look at Mulroney, who won our hearts opposing patronage, then turned around and appainted over 500 Tories to every post imaginable, Look at Rae, the pal of unions, chopping away at collective bargaining. Clinton, the take-charge guy, having already fost control of the helm. And Mikey, the whale-lover, letting the chainsaws loose on some of the biggest remaining trees in the world. People have every right to feel shafted. But we've all been shafted be- fore politically, no big deal. Why has the level of anger risen so swiftly in the wake of these par- ticular leaders’ ascension to of- fice? It might be true that we’re just going through a bad patch, with the quality of leadership pium- meting before our eyes. This is a comforting thought because the possibility remains open that we might actually get some great leadership yet, somewhere down the road, The leaders I've mentioned, while shifty and apparently rud- derless, are not, after all, all that much worse, on balance, than, say, Trudeau or Barrett or Vander Zalm, to cite but a few illuminati. ‘Let's get Canada to Work. You and I — Together!” : " authorized by the official agent for Mobina Jatter, ILIONS GATE FHOSPITAL June 28 - July 12 info call Al-Anon, 688-1716. 28 & 5 Al-Anon hosts weekly meetings at LGH Monday eve- nings at 8:00 pm in the Medical Day Centre Dietary Lounge. For The new leaders have just found new ways to screw things up that hadn't been thought of before. Their problem is that leaders today are prisoners of media. By media | mean the whole fot, the spin doctors, PR types and pollsters as well as the anchors, publishers, reporters, book salesinen, editors, talk-show hosts, floor directors, the hundreds of thousands of Canadians involved in the process of delivering the leaders’ image into the mass mind. The media have given politi- cians a priceless tool, a hitherto unimaginable, nearly magical power to reach people, ultimately on a global basis. The downside is that leaders are hugely overexposed. Gordon Lightfoot, the folk - singer, got it right when he com- plained about a CRTC ruling that forced Canadian radio stations to play Canadian songs, including his, more often. “That'll just shorten my ca- reer," he grumbled. “If I get tao much exposure, I’m dead.” If } was advising Prime Minister Campbell, I'd tell her to go hide out on a mountainside somewhere and not say a thing until after the election, No pictures, no broad- casts. Total media blackout. We don't need to get to know you, We know you quite well enough, thank you, already. You're a victim of media overhype to the nth degree. One more interview before the Tory convention and you'd have been road kill, A thousand more beiween now and election day and you'll be a footnote. Seriously. How's that? Am | back in the running for a Senate seat, huh? » « European Facials © Pedicures « Manicures « Waxing © Gift Certificates Mel iberal alla ages, the Program is limited to 4 people per session. To pre-regis-- ter call 984-3722 29,6 &8 The Breast Self Exami- nation Teaching Clinic runs Tues- days from 4:30-7:30 pmand Thurs- days from 10:00 am until 1:00 pm. For appointments call 925-1952. |DELBROOK MASSAGE THERAPY | MSP Covered Suite 116, 3711 DELBROOK AVE.,N. 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