Features

Reporter's Notebook: Rosemary Barton

It’s the first week of the election and it’s already happened. It was bound to. This is not my first election so I knew there was a risk going in, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.

It started Saturday, Feb. 24... at least I think it was Saturday – I’ve already lost all track of time. At first it was just a feeling of déjà vu. A sense I knew what was about to come. And then, it was more than that.

Now each time Jean Charest opens his mouth for a speech or a comment or a reaction, I can almost always predict what he is going to say.

More than that, I know the lines by heart.

Charest speaks of his “team” and his “plan”. He attacks his opponents with talk of “cat “ and “mice”. He compares, he contrasts, he opposes.

Most of Charest’s speeches end in a very similar way: “They (insert opponent’s name here) want this (insert issue here) as quickly as possible: and we want (insert Liberal candidate’s name or issue) as soon as possible.”

Of course, the speech is new material for supporters in the room. The jokes get good, hearty laughs, but they also get old very quickly.

That’s the risk you run when you follow a politician for hours and days at a time. They cannot always have something new to say: so they use their best lines often.

The only problem is: the lines are old to me. Such is the life of a reporter on the bus. Sigh.