Getting Ready for Ralph
By Trevor Cole

I’m just back from my Ralph Klein practice meeting, and I’m not one bit happy.

As you know, a couple of weeks ago Klein ditched his national advertising campaign to dump on the Kyoto accord (too blatantly self-serving, said the polls, too inexpressibly obnoxious), and decided instead to devote his propaganda efforts to a cross-country string of personal meetings with business groups and influence peddlers (behind closed doors, nice and private, and usually you can get a decent cheese tray and maybe something to wet your whistle). In anticipation of my own imminent tete a tete with Klein, I did what any responsible debater would do, what any political candidate getting ready for his network hour under the hot lights would do — I set up my own fake debate, with my own Ralph Klein stand-in, and tried to rehearse.

My first mistake was in not predetermining what my position on Kyoto would be. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I realized only when I was there, standing at the makeshift cardboard lectern in my garage, that all I’d figured out was my position on Ralph Klein, which was not going to help me at all.

Ralph Klein: “Kyoto is bad.”

Me: “You’re a big knothead.”

What kind of debate is that? What kind of contribution to the nation’s welfare? What I had to do, I reasoned, was quickly come to some half-cooked stance based not on actual research but on something an expert on The National probably said to Peter Mansbridge the night before. I say “probably” because at the very moment the expert I meant to parrot was opening her mouth, I was distracted by my dog’s sudden, crazy digging at a crack in the hardwood floor and my 9-year-old daughter’s march-by with a radio blasting Eminem. “Kyoto is better than nothing,” said the expert. I think. Anyway, it’s all I had, so I went with it.

My second mistake — much bigger, as it turned out — was in asking my Uncle Gil to act as my Ralph Klein stand-in. Uncle Gil has all the obvious qualifications for the job – he’s a thick sausage of a man with a parvenu’s sense of decorum wrapped tightly around a girth of belligerent self-congratulation. He’s a big knothead, in other words, and fully capable, I thought, of handling Klein’s anti-Kyoto side of the debate. At the time I decided to set up this rehearsal, he also happened to be right there, in the garage, pawing through my hoard of drill-bits without permission. So he was in no position to say no.

Actually, he was all right at first. He seemed to get the whole Ralph Kleinish, it’s-only-good-if-it’s-good-for-me posture. He went for characterization.

“How long’s this gonna take?” he said, leaning away from step-ladder I’d set up as his lectern. “I only came in for a damn three-eighths bit.”

“But Kyoto’s the best we’ve got!” I countered.

“What’s that?” said Uncle Gil, eyes narrowed. “Key-hole who?”

Unfortunately, as soon as we began to argue about the economic impact of the accord, it was clear to me that Uncle Gil was way out of his depth.

“Tell me about job losses,” I said, not ten minutes in and already having to prompt him. “Come on, what’s your inflated number?”

“You’re flapping your gums,” said Uncle Gil, shaking his bald head. “You’re talking, but I can’t make you out.”

“No,” I insisted. “I want a real debate.” He was focusing too much on the Klein thing. “Give me some arguments. Warn me about a drop in the GDP. Explain to me about lending chill.”

Uncle Gil had a pudgy hand to his throat. “It’s dusty in here,” he said, looking around, making dry-mouth, smacking sounds. “Usually people keep a few beer in their garage.”

“Stop it,” I said. “My position is that Kyoto’s real, and your made-in-Alberta alternative is so much smoke. Now what do you say? Give me something to work with.”

“This is nonsensical,” said Uncle Gil, stepping away from the ladder. “I’m getting out of here.”

“Yeah,” I shouted back. “That’s your solution for everything, isn’t it, Klein?”

“You’re losing touch, boy,” said Uncle Gil, edging out the side door. “I’m your mother’s brother. I live three houses down.”

“That’s right,” I yelled, slapping the cardboard. “The same neighbourhood, but a world away!”

He was running down the sidewalk by then, as fast as a heavy man can go.

“Don’t you have any sense of moral responsibility?” I called after him. “Shouldn’t a populist leader care about more than big business?”

But he was out of earshot, and there was no point in carrying on. And now I’m left with seven frantic messages from my mother, and I’m no closer to knowing what I should say to Ralph Klein when he sits me down for our private closed-door session. Sure, I’ve got my intro: “Care to sample our cheese tray?”

After that, I’ve got diddly.