could not be a reliable defender of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I was angry that a friend would repeat such a tired canard, and afterward, as we passed in the hall, he looked at me and shrugged. “It’s politics,” he said. He was right, of course. In politics, there is no such thing as good or bad faith.
You can try complaining about the bad faith of an opponent to the press, but they aren’t the referees. They’ve come to watch the fight and they want a good one. As one of them said to me, “Our job is towatch the battle and then come down on the field and shoot the wounded.” Once you’ve been shot at, you handle all your interactions with the media with utmost care. You become strategic. You become as careful as your appearance, every hair in place, tie well knotted, suit immaculate, armoured for the day of battle. In entering politics you have to surrender spontaneity and one of life’s pleasures—saying the first thing that comes into your head. If you are to survive, you have to fit a filter between your brain and your mouth. When words are weapons and can be turned against you, freely expressing yourself is a luxury you can’t afford. Your language, like your personality, becomes guarded. You can still have fun. Indeed you must have fun, since everyone likes a happy warrior, but every happy warrior is a watchful one.
Obviously, a straight answer to a straight question is a good idea, and when citizens put a question to you, such candour becomes an obligation. They elect you, after all. The rules are different with the press. In the strange kabuki play of a press conference or interview, candour is a temptation best avoided. Be candid if you can, be strategic if you must. All truth is good, the African proverb goes, but not all truth is good to say. You try never to lie, but you don’t have to answer the question you’re asked, only the question you want to answer.
As you submit to the compromises demanded by public life, your public self begins to alter the person inside. Within a year of entering politics, I had the disoriented feeling of having been taken over by a doppelgänger, a strange new persona I could barely recognize when I looked at myself in the mirror. I wore Harry Rosen suits—and Harry himself had chalked the trousers—and my ties were carefully matched to my shirts. I had never been so well-dressed in my life and had never felt so hollow. Looking back now, I would say that some sense of hollowness, some sense of a divide between the face you present to theworld and the face you reserve for the mirror, is a sign of sound mental health. It’s when you no longer notice that the public self has taken over the private self that trouble starts. When you forget that you have a private realm that you want to keep separate from the public gaze, you’ll soon surrender your whole life to politics. You become your smile, the fixed rictus of geniality that politics demands of you. What that happens, you’ve lost yourself.
As November turned to December 2006, with the convention upon us, all the advice from the team was to play it safe, to cut down unforced errors, keep within the tramlines and never go off script. This may have been prudent advice, but it had the effect of draining me of conviction. I could feel myself becoming less inspiring as every night went by. All actors, and all good politicians, have the particular brand of stamina known as “keeping it fresh.” They keep finding a way to renew the role. Showtime for me—the round of delegate meetings and fundraisers—became a circus act more threadbare with every repetition. As the convention finale approached and our team, now numbering in the hundreds, was engaged in frantic last-minute phoning to line up delegate support, I found myself wondering what political life was doing to me. I had made myself into a politician, and I didn’t much like what I was becoming.
I hoped none of this showed as Zsuzsanna and I toured
You can try complaining about the bad faith of an opponent to the press, but they aren’t the referees. They’ve come to watch the fight and they want a good one. As one of them said to me, “Our job is towatch the battle and then come down on the field and shoot the wounded.” Once you’ve been shot at, you handle all your interactions with the media with utmost care. You become strategic. You become as careful as your appearance, every hair in place, tie well knotted, suit immaculate, armoured for the day of battle. In entering politics you have to surrender spontaneity and one of life’s pleasures—saying the first thing that comes into your head. If you are to survive, you have to fit a filter between your brain and your mouth. When words are weapons and can be turned against you, freely expressing yourself is a luxury you can’t afford. Your language, like your personality, becomes guarded. You can still have fun. Indeed you must have fun, since everyone likes a happy warrior, but every happy warrior is a watchful one.
Obviously, a straight answer to a straight question is a good idea, and when citizens put a question to you, such candour becomes an obligation. They elect you, after all. The rules are different with the press. In the strange kabuki play of a press conference or interview, candour is a temptation best avoided. Be candid if you can, be strategic if you must. All truth is good, the African proverb goes, but not all truth is good to say. You try never to lie, but you don’t have to answer the question you’re asked, only the question you want to answer.
As you submit to the compromises demanded by public life, your public self begins to alter the person inside. Within a year of entering politics, I had the disoriented feeling of having been taken over by a doppelgänger, a strange new persona I could barely recognize when I looked at myself in the mirror. I wore Harry Rosen suits—and Harry himself had chalked the trousers—and my ties were carefully matched to my shirts. I had never been so well-dressed in my life and had never felt so hollow. Looking back now, I would say that some sense of hollowness, some sense of a divide between the face you present to theworld and the face you reserve for the mirror, is a sign of sound mental health. It’s when you no longer notice that the public self has taken over the private self that trouble starts. When you forget that you have a private realm that you want to keep separate from the public gaze, you’ll soon surrender your whole life to politics. You become your smile, the fixed rictus of geniality that politics demands of you. What that happens, you’ve lost yourself.
As November turned to December 2006, with the convention upon us, all the advice from the team was to play it safe, to cut down unforced errors, keep within the tramlines and never go off script. This may have been prudent advice, but it had the effect of draining me of conviction. I could feel myself becoming less inspiring as every night went by. All actors, and all good politicians, have the particular brand of stamina known as “keeping it fresh.” They keep finding a way to renew the role. Showtime for me—the round of delegate meetings and fundraisers—became a circus act more threadbare with every repetition. As the convention finale approached and our team, now numbering in the hundreds, was engaged in frantic last-minute phoning to line up delegate support, I found myself wondering what political life was doing to me. I had made myself into a politician, and I didn’t much like what I was becoming.
I hoped none of this showed as Zsuzsanna and I toured
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