Thanks be to god — the political god, that is — for using his/her/its absolute power to generate some election buzz in Newfoundland, thus creating a vaccine that just might prevent the further spread of the Trump virus in these parts, a disease whose symptoms include hours of cursing at the incessant “Breaking News” segments on CNN detailing the latest in The Donald Debacle.
“Can you believe the @#$%^&* hypocrisy of that greasy Ted Cruz?”
“I want to gag on a $^%*&@ caplin every time I see that Lindsey #%$&^@ Graham on the screen.”
“What the %&^(*@#?? They shut down Trump’s twitter account? I’m gonna go into a %^&&* depression without my regular hit. I’ll go into %&*^@# withdrawal.”
“Who does Anderson Cooper’s hair?”
You just know this disease, this addiction, is causing agitation and foulness in this relatively placid, smiling land of ours: late suppers or take-out chicken; dried-out Christmas trees depositing shovelfuls of needles on living room floors in mid-January; rackets in bars over the choice of junior hockey versus the disgusting but entertaining Trump reality program on the big-screen TV sets; arguments over fender-benders on Torbay Road caused by drivers exchanging text messages on the sins of the Christian Right, the pious types who played a critical role in putting Trump in the White House.
But, hallelujah, brothers and sisters! We, in Newfoundland, have been saved. The backroom boys and girls of the Liberal party, the Furey Flunkies, have been whispering sweet nothings in the ears of the local newspaper scribblers and on-air presenters, dropping hints, testing the waters on an election in February.
And it’s a respite from the American craziness; not as dramatic, I’ll grant you, as the live coverage of a bunch of cerebral-challenged wing nuts ransacking the Capitol Building, urged on by their leader, the reality television host turned racist demagogue, an inarticulate lamebrain, arguably the worst and most embarrassing president in U.S. history.
The backroom boys and girls of the Liberal party, the Furey Flunkies, have been whispering sweet nothings in the ears of the local newspaper scribblers and on-air presenters, dropping hints, testing the waters on an election in February.
But, hey, punditry surrounding a trip by Newfoundlanders to the polls on a frigid day in February at least provides some semblance of normal conversation about local matters, as opposed to the madness to the south of us.
And, as someone who began close observation of Newfoundland elections as a raw journalistic rookie an eternity ago, a sharpened Telegram pencil and notebook at hand, obtaining an early education on the shallowness of politicians, but, as a grateful aside, getting the opportunity to visit all corners of this beautiful province of ours in choppers, sea planes, campaign buses, even snowmobiles on occasion, I can now play a meagre role in keeping this election gossip in full gear.
So, on that note, and as of this writing: I hope to hell Furey and company are tarred and feathered (metaphorically, of course) if an election has been called without giving their constituents — the unwashed, you and I — at least a preliminary report from the much publicized economic recovery task force, headed by that wonder woman of the international business world, Dame Moya Greene.
It would be incredibly unfair and devoid of even a whiff of integrity, in fact, if Furey were to ask for a mandate based solely on the generalities he has espoused since a minuscule percentage of Newfoundland voters, all Liberals, decided he should temporarily head the government.
The recent resignation from the task force of Mary Shortall, the head of the province’s federation of labour, is a clear indication that the lunch bucket brigade, the “ordinary Newfoundlanders,” as described long ago by political warhorse Steve Neary, will bear the brunt of the dramatic economic hits Furey will deliver over the next few years (if he’s elected), a reflection, one could safely assume, of Greene’s recommendations.
And voters have an unqualified right to hear whatever message, as harsh as it might be, she will deliver to the premier.
(Shortall’s departure was certainly sold by her supporters as a decision of principle, and that might be so, but I couldn’t help but wonder why she had let herself be convinced — conned might be a more accurate description — to join the task force in the first place, and why she had agreed to an inane non-disclosure agreement. Both moves, it seems to me, compromised her ability to speak up for her membership, the 70,000 unionized workers in the province).
But it’s Furey, not Shortall, or anyone else for that matter, who will dictate just how honest, how “transparent” (that over-used, convenient and often meaningless word in political jargon) his government, his party, will be as it goes in search of votes on the hustings.
Dr. Furey wields the scalpel, and he should surely feel an obligation to lay out our future prognosis before he begins to cut, so to speak, and share with us, his patients, the surgical directions he has been given by Dame Greene.
Or, he can merely follow the expedient route of letting the polling numbers dictate his political approach, and take that familiar road paved with platitudes, as so many of his predecessors have done.
In any case, I’ve done my part, providing a smidgen of political pontificating, a couple of minutes of reading time — Newfoundland stuff — and a respite from CNN and Trump.
But feel free now to unmute the American proceedings on the boob tube and let the cursing resume:
“How ’bout that *^&%#@ Mitch McConnell? He’s been up Trump’s *(&%$^#. “
Put on your headsets, kids.
Cover your ears, pups.
Bob Wakeham has spent more than 40 years as a journalist in Newfoundland and Labrador. He can be reached by email at [email protected]
