The Scene and Herd

I was pretty dissatisfied by all accounts of the Liberal leadership convention. Media put it down as ill attended, underwhelming and unnecessary. Many seemed to take issue with Iggy’s allusioin to the 1968 convention at which Trudeau was elected. That convention spouted Trudeaumania, they argued. This one was just boring.

Thing is, I read an account in the Globe and Mail that claimed the convention was all about free beer and raucous political debate. “That sounds really awesome,” I thought to myself. I would totally be manic for Ignatieff in that environment, not bored at all.

In the Globe today, Lysiane Gagnon writes that Ignatieff wants to be the new Trudeau, but Canadians would “rather have competent, pragmatic leaders than a visionaries.” Sigh. That certainly does’t apply to me. Trudeaumania could “never be replicated,” she writes. Trudeau came at a “specific moment in history, at a time when the youth movement was shaking the world and people were thirsty for new, younger faces. Mr. Trudeau was an elegant, unconventional man of 46, a sharp contrast with the boring political figures of the time.”

That specific moment in time seems to bear a strong resemblance to this specific moment in time (ie. South of the border). I’m usually thirsty for new, young faces in politics. I’m also usually bored with the political figures of my time (against whom Michael Igantieff appears quite elegant). What the hell is going on here? Am I missing something?

Or am I just the same age now as all these disenchanted journalist were then, when Trudeau was on the scene?

I wonder what people would have written about the convention if Iggy had left 1968 out of things. He had to go and remind all those old politicos that they were once young and idealistic, but they’d since aged and nothing is very exciting anymore.

The article concludes with the claim that “’Iggymania’ exists mostly in the imagination of those who are waxing nostalgic about Pierre Elliott Trudeau.”

But I wonder if those waxing nostalgic about 1968 are having the harder time getting manic about anything, now that they’re old and hate free beer with raucous debate.