We’re nearly there, any day now. Enda will sup tay with Michael D, slap him on the back and say ‘howya lad, I’m thinkin’ of going to the country so will ya sign this pieceen of paper so I can turn the car wesht and start the canvassing’…the knocking on doors. But I’m ahead of him. I’ve been on the canvass for a month now. Getting the face out there. Pressing the flesh. Meeting the great unwashed. With their flus and their colds. And the smell of dinner of them. Every night I’m at it and every day. With my team. Up the path shuffle, ears open for fear the bloody dog would wake, but there’s no dog so there’s a soft cough and a rattle of the knocker and a figure coming up the lit hallway…Howya Maam is himself at home? Oh sure yourself will do. I’m running in the election so I am so I’d be hoping you’d give me your number one or two or anything at all…sure I know yer local man has looked after ye well down here with the new light above at the church and all that but I’d look after ye too so I’d take a two too so I would when you’re scratching your numbers down at the school next month…Oh ya well that’s great so it is…and here’s me card and me email address. I’ve an email address now that people can email me from their email machines on their computer thingys…or you can twitter me or like me or poke me on Facebook, so if you’ve any potholes or potheads or anything you want rid of, I’m your man. I’m your man. I’ll do everything I can, to get meself elected…thank ya ma’am thank ya… Too aisy, this is. The public love me, can’t get enough of me, but will they vote for me. D’ya think she’ll vote for me? She will in her…whole month now I’ve been doing this patch, scratching away at the list all week…patting snottynosed kids and spitting at snottynosed dogs…giving me opinion on everything and anything under the sun…’cos I’m well read…Get the Times so I do…Vote for me. I’m your man. I’ll do everything I can, to get meself elected…Repeal the eighth is it? Jaysis that’s wimmens’ matters now so I’m not too up to speed on these but sure if you want me to repeal it, whatever it is I will, and the Ninth and Tenth as well if you that’s what you want. And I’ll plead the Fifth. I will, sure I will if you’ll vote for me…I nod a lot and what’s the word, empathise. That’s the one. It means pretending I feel like they do…I tut tut. Yeah the floods and the hospital…shocking stuff shocking…you were 78 hours on a trolley…jaysus that’s terrible so it is. Well if I get elected, I’m banning trollies so there’ll be none of them. They can sleep on the floor. They’ll be glad they had trollies then, so they will…and the homeless, yeah I think about them, but sure you don’t have to think much about them when you’re knocking on doors, ‘cos they don’t have doors and you’re not going to meet one, so you nod and tut tut…and blame the government…Vote for me. I’m your man. I’ll do everything I can, to get meself elected…I dream of the guts of a million spondoolicks over five years. I dream of standing on the plinth outside the Dail in March. A plinth is just a big step, ok. One big step for “I’m ur man”kind…“what d’ya mean I’ll have no power. Sure I will. I’m me own man. I won’t be whipped. Sure I haven’t been whipped since herself came home from Fifty Shades in the village cinema last year full of bullock’s notions, so she was. I keep walking and knocking. They love me. Can’t get enough of me. I’m giving them everything they want. Another door, another mangy dog, where are all the cat lovers when you’re canvassing?… they send the kid out ‘cos they’re watching Operation Transformation and the state of them all sitting on the couch atin’ pizza and drinking Coke and laughing at the fat feckers on the telly. Father waddles out eventually…I shake the hand and he tried to catch me out. “Sure I’m a nationalist too, yeah the right kind, not the kind that kills ya, the other kind. We’re five weeks out now from the big day…don’t forget the face now or the name…got the new suit for when they lift me on their shoulders and throw me up and down…and my speech done, two of them, wan for if I’d ever lose, and another one where I thank Mammy for making me the man I am, and for making me breakfast for nigh on 50 year.
Canvassing I hate it… like begging it is. Like asking people for a favour so it is. Promising them this and that. Is it lying? No, I promise to do this to the best of my ability. It’s just they have no clue what the best of my ability is. And neither do I…… Howya sir, can I count on ya next month, ‘gwan, I’ll look after ya. A grant is it.
Politicians, you can’t be up to them.
(No politicians were harmed or maimed in the writing of this piece. Any reference to any persons living or dead is merely coincidental )
