“I Know I’m Not Going to Win”: Why People Set Out on Impossible Quests

iStock/The Walrus

This story was originally published on thewalrus.ca

By Mark Medley

She knew she wasn’t going to win. In fact, she often introduced herself this way: I’m Liz White, I’m running for office, and I know I’m not going to win. This would be delivered with an apologetic smile, maybe a gentle laugh, as if she were letting you in on a joke. As if to underscore the foolishness of what she was saying. The person she was addressing, standing on their porch or leaning against a scuffed door frame, might tilt their head, like a puppy hearing an unfamiliar command, unsure if what they heard was, in fact, what Liz White had said.

But, yes, it was true. White was under no illusions when it came to success; the riding in which she was campaigning, composed of mostly well-to-do neighbourhoods on the eastern edge of downtown Toronto, would go to the incumbent Liberal—maybe the New Democratic candidate if things broke just the right way. But the Animal Protection Party of Canada, of which White was the long-time leader? It was not going to happen. It had never happened. It would never happen.

Onward. One house, then the next. Up a few steps, knock on the door, back down to the sidewalk, then do it again. She called it her workout: “You get in good shape doing this, let me tell you.” It was just past noon on a gorgeous late-summer day. The park across the street was overrun with dogs and babies, and commuter trains occasionally rumbled down the adjacent rail path, hurtling towards or escaping from the city’s core. Campaign signs clung to fences, grew from flower beds, and peeked through front windows like nosy neighbours. The election was only a few days away, but it wouldn’t matter if it was held the following year or in a decade’s time—the results would be the same.

A snapshot of White on this day, from bottom to top: black walking shoes, a white skirt adorned with a black flower pattern, black sweater over a white collared shirt, a black backpack slung over her shoulders, black-framed glasses, grey hair in a bob. She looked like your favourite high school English teacher.

Her knocking or ringing of the doorbell often went unanswered or ignored, and so she would slip a brochure into the mailbox or place it inside a screen door,