Tim Duboyce

• Jetting from one coast to the other, zipping across Canada's timezones on staggeringly packed schedules, often campaigning in several provinces in one day, albeit with the comforts of modern air travel, like refreshments and fresh seafood?
• Staying in one province (except for a brief hop to Toronto) confined to trucking along Quebec's notoriously bad highways (and even worse back roads), on a shimmying bus, then making hops in a 40-year-old turboprop with so many decibels bouncing through the cabin you can't even carry on a conversation without shouting, to visit tiny towns and villages, often relegated to the sidelines of a national election campaign?

Gilles Duceppe was asked that question (not in so many words) at the end of a press briefing on the economy.

"Don't you think you have it kind of easy in this campaign?" Journal de Québec reporter, Michel Hébert blurted out as Duceppe was trying to leave the podium.

"Mr. Dion is campaigning with polar bears, Mr. Harper has essentially ignored you, except in the past couple of days," Hébert continues.

Duceppe breaks out into laughter during a stop in Trois-Rivières.

"When things go badly, it's my fault, and when things go well, it's easy," Duceppe quips.

"I have another philosopher besides Yogi Berra (the legendary Yankees catcher and then coach credited with giving the world Duceppe's favourite sports quotation, "it ain't over till it's over").

"It's Claude Ruel." The Montreal Canadiens' coach and executive in the 1960s and 70s.

"There are no easy games," he said.

— Tim Duboyce