Watching the American election campaign, I see that the Republicans finally rediscovered their evil mojo. I think they were struggling for a while to find the right kind of mud to sling at Obama – they could never find anything that stuck. Then they hired a Karl Rove-style slimer, and they found it: Obama as the narcissistic celebrity who is out of touch with the average American.

Obama eats arugula! Obama won’t eat donuts! Obama would rather work out than visit American troops!

Personally, I think the attack ads are going to do a lot of damage. The Republicans’ genius is finding exactly the opponent’s greatest strength and turning it into their greatest weakness. Obama’s attempt to respond in kind, calling McCain Washington’s biggest celebrity, just doesn’t work.

No. What he has to do is retaliate with exactly the same tactic: identify McCain’s biggest strength and turn it into his biggest weakness. McCain’s strength = experience. His biggest weakness? His years of experience mean he is OLD. He’s out of it. He just doesn’t get it.

What you need is a series of adverts showing everyday Americans voicing their concerns about the economy and the war in Iraq. Then you get some clips of McCain verbally blundering and being inarticulate. McCain has admitted he doesn’t understand economics. Show that. McCain has speculated about America being in Iraq for 100 years. Show that, too.

Then you hit him with: McCain – He just doesn’t get it. Have a visual of him scratching his head and looking confused.

It’s mean, but not dirty, not in my books.

Meanwhile, on the homefront

Settling into the neighbourhood takes some adjustments. For example, you have to figure out when the garbage guys come around. The previous tenant didn’t impart this information to me, so I’ve been left to keep the street under surveillance, trying to figure out from the movements of various plastic bags and bits of unwanted furniture when exactly I might liberate the rear balcony of my own festering refuse. The other day, I got sort of hopeful. I arrived on the pavement early in the morning, just before work, and I saw a discarded armchair. (Montrealers will generally leave anything for the city to pick up – armchairs, TVs, even entire kitchen cabinets.) Hurrah! I thought, it’s garbage day.  So I rushed upstairs and excitedly carried my six or seven bags of garbage down to the street.

10 hours later, when I returned from work, those bags were still there. Oh boy. I can’t tell you how sheepish you feel when you are carrying bags of fruit-fly-infested garbage back into your home.

Another thing to feel very sheepish about, shameful even, occurred even more recently, like, today in fact. My elderly downstairs neighbour, whose Quebecois accent takes some paying attention to, make no mistake,  informed me that my washing machine had pissed water all over her apartment. The poor thing, old and infirm, she had been forced to mop up until past midnight. I was utterly mortified. Reportedly, this is the first time it’s happened under my watch, but it also happened during the previous tenant’s tenure.

Must get to the bottom of this.

As if that poor old mémé didn’t have enough to deal with. Christ, her son is a crack smoker!  The smell was thick in the air two weeks ago, as it wafted up through the floorboards and into my kitchen. The guy must be 40 years old. What is he doing still smoking crack? Does it make his job of lugging around furniture for the furniture store more bearable? The same guy delivered my queen mattress to my apartment on the very day that I caught him smoking crack. I’ve never had a crack smoker in my home before…

In news slightly further afield, the folks at the corner epicerie are, well, not very folksy. On several occasions now, they return my bonjours and mercis and bonne soirées with abject silence. Their prices are highly competitive, which means this surliness is unlikely to deter me, but my Lord,  would it hurt them to choke out at least one word? They don’t even have to mean it! Just bullshit smalltalk like everyone else.

Once I am ensconced more comfortably in Villeray, I will certainly do my part to make people feel welcome. In fact, I am welcoming a very special someone in just two days.

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