Pages, April 11, 1979- North Shore News:

How well would Oscar-winners govern? ©
Some voters may be muttering “chicken” about
Premier Bill Bennett and federal. Conservative -

leader Joe Clark, both of whom. are shilly-

TV wee about a

g with their opponents in

erent during the present election com-

except on their own terms. Personally, I’ve

a lot of sympathy for Messrs. Bennett and Clark.
There’s. something indecent about expecting the
head of a party to risk political massacre before
several million people merely i in order to boost

the CBC's ratings.

~ halle
NDP opposition leader Dave

Barrett to tangle with him on
‘Toe Tung. Maybe it was just
. thie way. he talked, but there
you are. And Dave Kin-

the tube—but with one
important .condition: that
Mr. Barrett. should be ac-
companied in the studio by
former NDP cabinet minister
Bob Williams and B.C.
Federation of Labor
president Dave Kinnaird.

challenged Mr. Bennett to a
straight one-to-one verbal
punch-up. The motives of
Both Mr. Bement and Mr.
Barrett are fairly obvious to
local politician-watchers.

During the 1972-75 NDP
| Years: in government Mr.

*

naird, as ‘spokesman for
B.C.’s organized labor, isn’t
exactly. a paper pussycat
either.

Between them, these
two—in Mr. Bennett’s

- judgement—could wreak so

much havoc on Mr. Barrett's

“moderate” image in half ‘an
hour in front of the camera
that the premier himself
would hardly need to do
much talking at all. He could

“Mr. Barrett happens to
have twice the vocabulary of

Mr. Bennett and con--

siderably larger lungs. In a
simple one-to-one duel of
words there’s little doubt
who would emerge the victor
on points. Why on earth,
then, should the Premier
prefer to do battle with the
opposition leader plus two of
the latter’s close allies&

SELF DESTRUCT .

The reason lies in the
image. of moderation,
Sta ip -and sweet
reasonableness which Mr.

Barrett has been assiduously .

cultivating over the past
year. His two companion
debaters demanded by Mr.
Bennett aren't quite in the
same mould.

ED BROADBENT ... a

new Perry Mason arguing
his way to the Best Sup-

porting Actor award?

of them ‘self-destruct for all
except the diehard socialist
fringe of the B.C. electorate.

Privately, Mr. Barrett
probably shares Mr. Ben-
nett’s reasoning. In election
campaigns there are times
when you don’t want your
best friends around—you
can always make amends to
them after you've won.

THREE-WAY
KNOCK-OUT

In the May 22 federal
election campaign Tory
leader Joe Clark has been
hesitating about accepting
an invitation to cross swords
on the 24-inch screen with
Prime’ Minister Pierre

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1091 Roosevelt Cres. N. Van.

' knock-out event:

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-Trodeau and NDP chieftain

Ed Broadbent in a three-way
And,
again, small wonder.

To begin with, it would be
a@ two-against-one situation.
However hard Pierre and Ed
may slug: each other it in direct

- doesn’t speak the same

language. Taking on one at a
time might at least make the

~ odds a. little more even,
though there's no guarantee.

_ GIFT OF THE GAB

All of which makes one
wonder about the whole
rationale for TV debates

between. party leaders as ~

part.of the electoral process.

- All the other technological

advances of. the past couple
of decades—TV exposure of
individual candidates, rapid
jetliner campaigning

other and Madison Avenue-
style “image-building”—ha-
ve notably failed to improve

‘the quality of the final

product: the government
we're stuck with on election
night for the next three to
five years.

Like everything else on
the tube, political TV
debates are conceived
primarily as entertainment,

falling into the same general -

category as a championship
fight or Hockey Night in
Canada. The audience wants

, Political

during the 1976 presidential

from .
- one end of the country to the

history's great -leaders were ~

both—so that the winner is
automatically Mr. Witty,
Mr. Glib or Mr. Voluble. . -

’ The only variation in the
ttern comes in those
TV debates
featuring two losers and no
winner—an art form which
reached its peak in the turgid
rostrum-to-rostrum ex-
changes between Jimmy ~
Carter and Gerry Ford

International Year
of the Child .

election.

‘What it-all has to do with
choosing the best man to .
lead a nation or a province is —
hard to see. Very few of

the stuff of which Oscar—. .
winners are made—and the —
few who might have been ..
nominated (like Richard HI, ~
Napoleon and Hitler) for a
Best Actor Award invariably
came toa sticky end.

have much more in common
politically and philosphically
than citHer of them has with
Joe. In fact, it was Ed's
predecessor, former NDP
leader Dave Lewis, who kept
Pierre in the style to which
he was accustomed at 24
Sussex Street during those
lean minority Liberal years
from 1972 to 1974. It could
happen again this time with
Ed holding the balance of
power.

(Don’t be fooled by the
NDP promise to demand
Pierre’s resignation as the
price of their. support for
another minority Liberal
government. People will say
anything, especially early in
the campaign, to win votes).

Meanwhile, both Mr.
Trudeau and Mr. Broadbent
are fast, no-holds-barred
talkers. Mr. Broadbent looks
and sounds more and more
like Perry Mason. Mr.
Trudeau, clad in his leather
trench coat and _ smiting
down ‘hecklers by telling
them to get off their asses,
would do credit to any late-
night Bmovie. -*

As entertainment, it’s
doubtful whether the
comparatively gentemanly
and thoughtful act cultivated
by Mr. Clark would stand a
chance against these two
taughies in combination. He

the show to wind up with a
winner and a loser—and if a
little blood is spilled along
the way, so much the better.

For the contenders, the
gift. of the gab is all that
matters for a fleeting 60
minutes. The aim of the
game is simply to make you
opponent look dull, stupid or

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