This November's municipal race in Montreal was shaping up as the usual soapbox derby among jerry-rigged vehicles named Fill-in-the-blank Montréal that might qualify as cults of personality if only their leaders had any.
Then along came Louise Harel to make things interesting.
Such is the political vacuum in Quebec's metropolis that all it took was a single poll to make a controversial, unilingual sovereignist a potential candidate for mayor of a bilingual, predominantly federalist city in an election only five months off.
A combination of novelty, name recognition and dissatisfaction with the incumbent might explain why Harel beat Mayor Gérald Tremblay 45-26 straight up in a poll by Angus Reid for La Presse last month.
Such hypothetical, what-if polls naming undeclared candidates are notoriously unreliable predictors of future voter behaviour.
Even so, Harel, who had previously declined to run, began testing the waters in 21st-century fashion by launching a blog.
She quickly became the hottest free agent in Quebec politics, putting her at the centre of a bidding war between two of the Whatever Montréals that pass for parties in the city.
Two days ago, the mayoral candidate for Projet Montréal, Richard Bergeron (would you recognize this man if he sat down beside you on the métro?), offered to pull out of the race in favour of Harel if she "endorsed completely" his party's program and local candidates.
But yesterday, Harel agreed to run for Vision Montréal at the top of a ticket with Benoît Labonté, who had been that party's candidate for mayor.
The morning's La Presse had quoted an unidentified member of Vision Montréal predicting that Harel would carry the east side of the city while Labonté would carry the west.
If that represents the party's thinking, then maybe it should change its name to Hallucination Montréal.
It appears more likely that Harel's candidacy will have a divisive, polarizing effect, making the election into a plebiscite on her and realigning the city's politics along lines of provincial and referendum politics and language.
Rarely in recent memory has Montreal had a mayor whose association with a provincial party was as long and strong as Harel's with the Parti Québécois. She was a prominent member of the PQ for more than 30 years, and represented it in the National Assembly as recently as six months ago.
And as a PQ minister, she was the mother of the forced mergers that many anglophones, and not only suburbanites, saw as an anti-English measure.
There is a theory that Harel's candidacy will mobilize PQ supporters, while the municipal demergers took away the anglophones who would have voted against her.
Not so. Even after the demergers, anglophones represent 19 per cent of the city's population, and other non-francophones 21 per cent. In five of the city's 19 boroughs, majorities of those casting ballots in the 2004 municipal referendums voted for demerger.
And if the prospect of a PQ takeover of city hall brings the provincial Liberals into the fray and mobilizes federalist voters to rally behind Tremblay, the odds appear to be against Harel.
Of the 20 provincial ridings that are mostly or entirely within the city's limits, 12 are solidly Liberal.
In announcing her decision yesterday, Harel read a few lines in English. It was the first time she has been heard speaking the language in public. At a time when the coach of the Montreal Canadiens and even the leader of the PQ are expected to be bilingual, the latest candidate for mayor of Montreal has difficulty answering questions in her second language.
Now she can spend the next five months practising - and trying to make a lot of voters forget how she spent the last 30 years.
For the record: On Tuesday, I wrote that Gérard Deltell ran for the National Assembly because he needed a job. Deltell says that when he decided to run, he was working on contracts for the Assembly's television service and to produce documentaries.
dmacpher CAj thegazette.canwest.com