Jack Knox
Slightly Skewed
OK, Steve Nash is out.
There was that goofy story out of Phoenix that said he was quitting basketball to run for office back home in Victoria, but he quickly denied it.
Too bad. Nash would have made a nice replacement for Gordon Campbell.
Sure, Campbell played high school hoops in Vancouver and coached state championship teams in Nigeria in the early 1970s (I'm not making this up), but he couldn't drain a jumper from three-point range like Nash, who potentially would have given the premier's office its hottest backcourt since Mike "The White Shadow" Harcourt.
That still leaves the question of who will lead the Liberal party.
Carole Taylor? Sends shivers down the spine of the NDP, but she won't run.
Dianne Watts? Plenty of buzz around the Surrey mayor, but she's not saying much.
Mike de Jong, Kevin Falcon, Rich Coleman? Doesn't matter how hard the current cabinet ministers try to scrub away the stench, they still smell like HST.
Best cast a wider net. How about David Foster? Back in 2001, the music producer created a fuss when he spoke about his ambitions. "I want to find the new Celine Dion, I want to be premier of British Columbia and I want to be a top record executive," he said at a Cannes award ceremony. "Politics gives me something to strive for - another dream, another ambition," he was quoted as saying. "Maybe it's a bit like a lawyer saying he wants to sing.
But I want to go back to British Columbia and do something."
Haven't heard from Foster on the subject lately. He wouldn't be the first pianist/composer to switch to politics, though. Ignacy Paderewski became prime minister of Poland in 1919. Other musicians have made the jump, too.
That big bald doofus from Midnight Oil is now Australia's education minister. Hip hop's Wyclef Jean was barred from running for president of Haiti this year. Kinky Friedman, the detective novelist/eponymous frontman for Kinky Friedman and The Texas Jewboys, lost his 2004 bid to become governor of the Lone Star State, but came up with the classic line
"Musicians can run this state better than politicians. We won't get a lot done in the mornings, but we'll work late and be honest."
Actors have better success getting elected, at least in the U.S.: Ronald Reagan, Clint Eastwood, Governator Arnold. The guy who played Gopher on The Love Boat was voted to Congress, as was Cooter from The Dukes of Hazzard. Al Franken of Saturday Night Live is in the U.S. Senate.
In Canada, it's the sports stars, not the musicians or actors, who do well in politics. Edmonton Eskimos Peter Lougheed and Don Getty both became premier of Alberta, while Lions defensive back Emery Barnes patrolled the secondary for the B.C. New Democrats. Lionel "Big Train" Conacher, considered Canada's best all-round athlete, served as an MP. Howie Meeker and Red Kelly were both elected to Parliament while still playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Montreal Canadien Ken Dryden went on to become a federal cabinet minister, as did world figure skating champ Otto Jelinek.
All of which means what, that the B.C. Liberals should choose a celebrity to lead them? Pamela Anderson - politically active, born on Canada Day in Centennial Year - leaps to mind and sometimes onto nightclub tables. Trevor Linden spent his NHL career moving back and forth between centre and right wing, which would make him a nice fit for the Liberals. Sarah McLachlan seems like a nice, warm person, might take some of the snarl out of the legislature.
Or maybe they should just recruit the goalie for the dart team, or a rodeo clown, or Mel Gibson's publicist ("What Mr. Gibson meant to say was...").
For being premier is not a job for the faint of heart, or for someone who craves affection. This is B.C., where leaders are eaten like lunch. (Matthew Engel of Britain's Guardian newspaper once wrote that while this province is "definitely one of God's better ideas ... its politics are vicious, corrupt, polarized and rather charmingly wacko.") The last five elected premiers - Bennett, Vander Zalm, Harcourt, Clark and now Campbell - have all been chased out of office before they could be defeated at the polls.
Sometimes even Steve Nash gets booed off the court.
