For many people, an election night is a great time on TV, an evening that is both interesting and entertaining. For a candidate, it is something else.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Election night, November 2013. My first campaign for mayor, Action Gatineau’s first campaign. As soon as the polling stations close, activists, volunteers, friends, families, candidates for councilor positions arrive little by little.
We set up our headquarters in the back of a restaurant, in what normally serves as a warehouse. My main organizers are there, including my wife, a valuable political adviser. We have a small table where a few computers are overheating. We are connected to the City’s website where the results are gradually appearing at the town hall and in the districts.
For the party, things are bad in the districts, but good at the town hall. We had planned the opposite, the last survey gave me losing by 20%!
A member of the team gives me the names of our candidates in advance, there are few. I have two versions of an opening speech in front of me. One for victory, the other for defeat. A third is slowly forming, an incomplete victory. My team feeds me, I scribble our best ideas to adapt to the situation the speech that I will make when the results are clear.
PHOTO ÉTIENNE RANGER, LE LAW ARCHIVES
Swearing-in of the new mayor of Gatineau, Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin, early November 2013
The fate of part of my team of volunteers is also at stake tonight. They are there out of conviction, but the mayor will need a cabinet, their life could also change.
Even the volunteers are tense. Among them are those, and they are not rare, who have taken their annual vacation to campaign. You read correctly. They have two or three weeks of vacation per year and they devote them to an election. They do it out of ideal, out of conviction, because they believe in their candidate. Along with many others, they have worked hundreds of hours for the cause.
Even before the responsibility that comes with a political function, it is the fact of carrying on our shoulders the hopes of so many idealists which is the greatest source of pressure.
The first results at the town hall are very good, we suspect that they come from the neighborhood where I was born and where my family grew up. I refuse to rejoice.
Dominic, a politics and numbers maniac volunteer, says to me from time to time: “You lead on average by X votes per ballot box. The figure is slowly increasing. “It’s now a lead of X votes per box. Later: “From now on, he has to pass you by X votes in all remaining boxes to catch up to you. A maniac, I tell you.
And finally: “It’s mathematical, he can’t catch up with you anymore. He holds out his hand to me and adds, “Let me be the first to call you Mr. Mayor.” »
Hearing “Mr. Mayor”, I understand that my life has just changed. My wife comes out of her role as adviser… and kisses me.
The whole team hugs each other, some cry, a whole universe opens up before us. They handed me a phone, it was my big brother calling me from Moscow. Emotion.
PHOTO ÉTIENNE RANGER, LE LAW ARCHIVES
Speech by the mayor during the swearing-in ceremony of Gatineau’s municipal council, in November 2013
In the large dining room, now packed, people are doing the same calculation as us and the room is exploding with joy. It’s euphoria. I understand that, despite defeats in the neighborhoods, the main thing for them is that we enter the council. We are taking a critical first step to improving our city.
The most seasoned activists, like my sister, stayed in the polling stations until every ballot was counted. These brave volunteers always miss the highlights of election nights. She will learn of my victory alone in her car.
My brain is racing. I think about what I will say, in a few moments, to the activists, to the people of Gatineau, to the elected or defeated candidates, to our adversaries with whom I will have to work.
The team reminds me, you have to celebrate the victory, but have height.
The journalists did not wait for us at the town hall as planned, they arrived en masse at HQ. We will improvise the press point in the entrance of the restaurant, but I must first address the activists.
Despite my joy, it is one of the most difficult speeches I have ever given. Yes, we won the town hall, but I have there, a few meters in front of me, defeated candidates who are crying their heart out. They are comrades in arms with whom I founded the party and faced our first great storms. Action Gatineau joins the board, but the battle has been tough. Rarely have so many contradictory emotions filled me.
Tonight, on their election night, leaders and candidates will experience similar emotions. I will think of them all, without exception.