Jean Charest Won't Win

Shut Up. Please, For The Love Of God.

One of the things I think about a lot is redemption, and getting from where someone is to where they want to get back to. I think about it in the context of my life, of politics, of news, and one of the ways I’ve worked through my feelings on second chances and redemption is writing characters who sometimes need it.

One of those moments, one of the scenes I’ve written that has both helped me to understand my thinking but also makes me think I can actually write decently was a scene from an (as yet unpublished) novel I wrote during the Canadian campaign, The Best Kind Of Chaos. In the scene, a pair of brothers who had had a falling out were back together, and there’s a spark of an old memory, an old happiness, and there’s a conversation about reliving that moment, to try and get back those better times.

The spark for that scene was Coldplay’s A Rush Of Blood To The Head, and that moment, when they pull it off, when they find their way back to some form of their normal, makes me cry to read it. What it also is is the only thing I can think of as the delusional chucklefucks who think Jean Charest either can, or in some ways worse, should, become the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada is that they’re, in effect, trying to do what Carson and Ian did, which is move past their troubles and embrace the past, in an attempt to get to the ultimate end game. The problem for these people is simple – my characters were able to get past their trauma because at the end of the day, both of them wanted to find a way to yes.

Here? The people Charest needs to win don’t want him, and there’s nothing more to it.

…

The Conservative Party does not want to find peace with Jean Charest.

Some individual conservatives do, and many Conservative MPs seem to want to, but as a party and as an institution, the Conservative Party of Canada about as much interest in rapprochement with Jean Charest as I do with sleeping with … I was gonna name a famous woman, but honestly, just use any woman, my answer will be the same. And this, fundamentally, is the problem for Conservatives who are so fucking excited to get on their knees for the prayer of a Charest candidacy.

The reason any reconciliation or any redemption or any comeback works is there needs to be a willingness to listen, and right now, the Conservative membership is 1000% not willing to listen to Jean Charest, because for the last 20 years he’s been the high-tax, anti-gun, pro-choice Leader of the Quebec Liberals, and if you think that the guy who sued Stephen Harper to keep a Long-Gun Registry in Quebec is going to get an easy ride in gun country, you’ve lost your damn fucking mind.

So, what is the theory he can win? That he’ll sign up 200k new members, and swamp the existing membership? I mean, that won’t happen, but even if it does, do you think the right will take that sitting down? Skippy might accept Charest as the legitimate leader, but the MPs for Saskatoon-Nowhere and Fort McMurray-ButtFuck Boonies won’t, and the PPC will end up being the defacto Reform Party faster than you can create a fake single mother from Chilliwack.

Also, you know, it’s not like Charest’s gonna be the only one signing up new members, and Poilievre, for all his many (many, many, many) faults is not a stupid man, and he will be ready for a battle for this leadership in every way possible. Andrew Scheer might be (read: totally is) a joke nationally at this point, but Scheer has unimpeachable socially conservative credentials, so getting his early endorsement – and probably more importantly, all his campaign data from 2017 – is huge for Skippy. Charest also hasn’t run for office since 2012 and he hasn’t won shit since 2008, so the idea he will be anything other than fancy French Jeb Bush leaves a lot to be desired.

Would Charest be a good Conservative leader if he did win? God no. Corruption of the highest order took place under his watch as Premier, his record as a Premier in Quebec is laughably weak, and we all pretended he was good because he was the guy there when the separatists lost steam, but that’s not the same thing as being good. Charest was a Deputy PM 35 fucking years ago, but even then, Mulroney’s government wasn’t a success outside NAFTA and their (genuinely good) environmental record, but unless you wanna give Charest credit for environmental advancements from before he was environment minister – and give him none of the blame for his role in the disastrous and nearly Canada-breaking constitutional quagmires of Meech Lake and Charlottetown – then you’re just sticking your head up your ass to defend him for nothing.

The theoretical idea of Jean Charest is appealing – the Quebecer moderate who can beat Trudeau. I get it, I really do. But there’s no evidence he can beat Trudeau, there’s no evidence he has much of a brain for the current crises, he worked for fucking Huawei during the hostage crisis, and he’s a doddering old man who hasn’t held office for a decade. If this is the best the Tory right can do, shouldn’t they just give up?

There is no market for Charest except amongst those who want to feel less bad about calling themselves Conservatives in this day and age. The media attention his challenge is getting is tantamount to an endorsement, and the slobbering, painfully soft coverage he is getting from so many members of the commentariat is a slap in the face. He will never love you like so many seem to love him, but more importantly, he’s got no chance of winning the Conservative Party leadership race in 2022.

The reason I started with A Rush Of Blood To The Head is become of its last four lines, and the way that they still make me tear up after using them in that scene. “Meet me on the road/Meet me where I said/Blame it all upon/A rush of blood to the head” is mastery in words, but it’s also an appeal for an apology. It works as a motif because the story I was telling was of someone begging to finally be forgiven fully and completely, and his older brother finally saying yes. Charest? He’s not asking, but importantly, there’s no one there who wants to hear it.

Jean Charest won’t be the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. He just fucking won’t.