Various footnotes.
1. As romantic as it may be to think that an Unpolitician is the answer, there’s a strong case to be made that only Proper Politicians win elections.
2. For that matter, there’s a case to be made that there is no such thing as the Unpolitician—those who claim to be proving themselves to be Proper Politicians in the process. This was the central struggle of David Foster Wallace’s writing on the McCain campaign in 2000. Of course, McCain was nice enough to render the whole argument, in his case, moot by becoming exactly the cliched, soulless, say-anything, lie-about-everything politician he was apparently supposed to stand in opposition to.
3. Dion is said to be very (too?) involved in the writing of his own speeches. So to say that the teleprompter was a problem for him is not to say that his speechwriters were necessarily a problem for him. Keeping in mind that almost everything to do with modern politics is a bit of a problem for him.
4. The general public is giving him almost no chance to win the two televised debates this week. It’s hardly an original observations, but that’s probably the best thing he has going for him.