To be fair though, Layton’s star was high but not that high before he died.
His personality won the NDP their best showing ever, but it was also combined with the Bloc tanking and it was only after he died that people really had this outpouring of grief. I have to say I was extremely shocked at that…I’d worked weekly as a volunteer at the riding and provincial level for the NDP for ten years starting in high school and no one much ever seemed to care before. I used to get the doors slammed in my face a fair amount while canvassing, and a whole lot of “I don’t care, commie”-type responses even more so.
Then suddenly everyone loves him and Steven Page is singing that heart-wrenching version of Hallelujah in Nathan Phillips Square (look it up on youtube). Wow. I thought it was just an internal party thing where he was liked so much…strange. I still have the little flags from his leadership convention where he was first elected…
He would have been a quite decent PM, but I’m not sure he would have been perfect either. Some random anecdotes, a propos of nothing. He used to make the same joke all the time: that he was once stumping at a farm with the local community all around him and the only platform they could find for him to speak on was a board on top of a pile of manure. So he climbed up there and faced the crowd and said, “This is the first time in my life I’ve spoken from a Conservative platform.” Lol! He also once told me “fuck Monsanto!” in my ear in a pub. Me: spits out my drink.