A Canadian perspective on tonight's events

OK, I wasn't going to blog about the U.S. election today, but in the end I couldn't resist. : )

I am Canadian (actually, I am half American through my American mother, and eligible for dual citizenship, although I have never claimed it), and so don't have a say in what's going on. Which doesn 't mean I don't have opinions. ; )

Like many other Canadians, I've been envious these past few months. We just had an election ourselves a few weeks ago, but it was nowhere near as exciting. (On the bright side, it was also nowhere near as LONG, lol.)

As a feminist, the thought of the first woman president was absolutely thrilling. But then so too was the idea of the first black president -- the first president from my own generation.

Obama may not have experience on his side, but he is obviously gifted. As a sometime speechwriter, I am blown away by his ability to deliver on the podium, to create a vision with his words, to inspire, especially young people. Inspirational figures are far & few between these days, it seems, and inspirational politicians...?? The response to Obama shows just how hungry people are to be inspired, to be challenged -- not just in America, but all over the world.

Words arent' everything, of course, and should Obama win tonight, there is no way he will be able to live up to all the expectations heaped upon his slender shoulders. But words do matter, and he has used them well and wisely during this campaign.

I'm the same age as Barack Obama (just a few months older). I was barely a week old when John Kennedy was inaugurated, & in grade school when his brother Robert was assassinated. I've had a lifelong fascination with the Kennedy family (much to my diehard Republican mother's bemusement). I would read Robert Kennedy's speeches & the stories of his campaign, & wish I had been around to experience that kind of passionate politics.

But by the time I was old enough to be interested in politics, the idealism of the 1960s had given way to the cynicism of the '70s. (If it wasn't a moon launch wreaking havoc with my Saturday morning cartoon schedule during summers at my grandmother's, it was the Watergate hearings)(she got FIVE channels with her rotary antenna, compared to the measly ONE I grew up watching -- the CBC -- until I was 14 & we moved closer to the border, and then got cable).

The closest I ever came to a truly inspirational political figure, I think, was Pierre Trudeau, Canada's Liberal Prime Minister from 1968 to 1979 and then again from 1980 to 1984 -- a good chunk of my formative years. (My very first political memory, in fact, is of the 1968 election, and asking my mother how to spell Trudeau.) Trudeau was a charismatic but highly controversial figure in Canadian politics (still is), and he was hugely unpopular in the area of the country where I grew up. He lost the 1979 election (the first one I voted in), but the Conservatives who defeated his government only held a minority, and in the winter of 1980, we were plunged back into another election.

At that time, I was a first-year student at the University of Manitoba. I didn't especially like Trudeau (& in fact, was a member of the campus Progressive Conservative club), but when we heard that he would be making a stop on campus, my roommate & I decided we would go see him. How often do you get to see a prime minister up close and in the flesh?

He was speaking in the student union building around 12:30 that day. Around 10:30, my roommate returned from a morning class. "We have to go NOW if we want to be able to see him," she said. So we went, and people were already waiting. By the time he finally arrived, it was wall to wall people, with kids lining the stairwells and looking down from the second floor.

It was a classic Trudeau performance. He stood in front of a microphone on the stage and spoke to us -- no lectern, no notes, certainly no teleprompter, his thumbs hooked in his belt loops in what the press called his "gunslinger" pose. I don't remember what he said that day, but I do remember laughing & shaking my head at how deftly he handled the inevitable hecklers. I never did vote for him, but I came away with a new respect for the man.

Later in the year, the province of Quebec held a referendum on separating from the rest of Canada. The recent accusations that Obama is a Muslim, because of his middle name, Hussein -- & Colin Powell's response, "he's not -- but so what if he was?" -- reminded me of a famous incident during the referendum. In Trudeau's own words:

"I was told that no more than two days ago Mr. Lévesque [Rene Levesque, then the separatist Premier of Quebec] was saying that part of my name was Elliott and, since Elliott was an English name, it was perfectly understandable that I was for the NO side, because, really, you see, I was not as much of a Quebecer as those who are going to vote YES.

"That, my dear friends, is what contempt is. It means saying that there are different kinds of Quebecers. It means that saying that the Quebecers on the NO side are not as good Quebecers as the others and perhaps they have a drop or two of foreign blood, while the people on the YES side have pure blood in their veins. That is what contempt is and that is the kind of division which builds up within a people, and that is what we are saying NO to.

"Of course my name is Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Yes, Elliott was my mother's name. It was the name borne by the Elliotts who came to Canada more than two hundred years ago. It is the name of the Elliotts who, more than one hundred years ago, settled in Saint-Gabriel de Brandon, where you can still see their graves in the cemetery. That is what the Elliotts are.

"My name is a Québec name, but my name is a Canadian name also, and that's the story of my name."

That was a pivotal moment in the referendum, and a great one in Canadian speechmaking. The famous opening line of a famous book about Trudeau reads, "He haunts us still," & and I don't think there has been anyone quite like him since he exited Canadian politics almost 25 years ago. (Certainly not our current cold fish of a PM.)

Trudeau died in late September 2000, just as I was completing my first IUI. Dh & I had taken the week off to accommodate my appointments & do stuff around the house, & we wound up watching the extensive coverage of his funeral. The eulogy was given by his oldest son, Justin, now a newly elected member of Parliament himself, who proved to have the oratorical skills of his father (not to mention the theatrical skills of his mother... but that's another story...).

Anyway -- all day long, for some reason, I've had an old Tom Cochrane song running through head. I just knew the refrain & the melody, not all the lyrics, & I finally had to look them up. At first read, it was nothing like what I expected. But when I read them again, I could actually see some application to current events. I am hoping it truly is a "Victory Day" all round -- for the United States, for all of us. (And now, I'm off to watch the returns!):

She's got her reasons, she's got her pride
Though she's beaten black and blue
One fine day she'll be walking outside
She'll turn to see what is true
Won't draw no curtains, be hiding no way
On that Victory Day

She's stuck it out, she's hung in tough
She won't be running away
He says it will change, but each time it does
It starts up all over again

He wants the thunder, the crashing of waves
The guts, the glory of victory parades
She says it just never happens that way
On that Victory Day

Victory Day, Victory Day
There's no rockets flaring, there's no loud display
If you walk with me we'll get there someway
On that Victory Day

In the sun, walk by the water, in the sun
She says life isn't big, not it's kind of small
Made of small moments, they're all strung together
If you don't look out, you might miss them all
Then it's just passed you on by like the weather

He wants that thunder and crashing of waves
The guts, the glory of victory parades
She says I'll give you much more than you'll take
On that Victory Day

Victory Day, Victory Day
There's no rockets flaring, there's no loud display
If you walk with me we'll get there someway
On that Victory Day

And he's gotten so close and he won't let it fade
And the reasons still haunt you for the mistakes you made
She says let it go, 'cause it's time for a change
But he's still a little boy trapped between pages
Time to walk away from him
She said "I'll take you some place where I know it will change"

Victory Day, Victory Day
There's no rockets flaring, there's no loud display
If you walk with me we'll get there someway
On that Victory Day, on that Victory Day