Y'ever seen that Bowflex commercial where they show the tubby schoolteacher transformed into a meaty babe magnet?Well, we kinda liked him flabby and nice rather than muscular and narcisssitic.
And that's how I loved Frank Zampino. As Mayor of St. Leonard, he actually used to return my phone calls and had tons of time for me. I thought of him as the great tide-turner against the longstanding tradition of mayhem and anarchy in that town.
So I spoke highly of him to whomever I could within the close circles of the mayor. Next thing you know he's second in command and I felt pride that my boy had gone to the top.
But about 2 years ago I saw him at a public event and he was very standoffish. He had lost a ton of weight, possibly by hitting the gym or more likely by gastric bypass. Laser eye surgery. Very efficient dealing with his mid-life crisis. Myself I just weep in the corner at my own MLC. He had changed. Someone told me that Zampino had snubbed me because he's shy. Bullshit. Not allowed. Especially from a politician.
As you surely know by now, Zampino quit the city and now is under tons of scrutiny for his connections to a possibly crooked businessman buddy who sorta snagged the city's largest-ever contract, which also happened to be like $150 Millz too expensive. The Tremblay party is having no fun these days. It's a fiasco and disaster.
Remember the Brian “on-the-take” Mulroney years, where federal cabinet ministers were scooping money and influence here and there?
ReplyDeleteThen they got routed; they went from 222 to 2 (a 111-fold reduction) overnight when the grits came back.
One of the survivors became the leader, a little kid from sherbrooke with cute curly hair.
Who then got parachuted as head of the Québec liberals.
(There has not been a conservative party in Québec for about 80 years. With the advent of the Parti Québécois in the 1960’s, the liberal party was slowly pushed into the conservative political niche, and the Parti Québécois has merrily been occuping the liberal party ecological niche since).
Gérald Tremblay is also a “liberal”.
’nuff said.
The Conservative Party only disappeared in name; it continued to exist as part of the Union Nationale. Dissident Liberals teamed up with the rump Tories, and they did rather well under their boy, Mo Duplessis. But they haven't counted for much in the past 40, 50 years.
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