The first debate of the federal election went down last week. Like the broad caricature of Millennial stereotypes that I am, instead of watching it, I followed it on Twitter while sipping a beer at an east side bar, killing time before a heavy metal concert. As the recaps, commentary and jokes scrolled through my Twitter feed, one name kept showing up with troubling frequency: Elizabeth May.

People — that is, people crowding in my corner of the online echo chamber — seem to really like the Green Party leader. She grilled Harper on climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and his “litany of broken promises.” She took Mulcair to task on pipeline plans. She seemed measured and articulate in a space generally defined by a bunch of men lobbing insults and broadsides at one another. And people noticed. “You can’t tell me Elizabeth May isn’t kind of a badass,” read one tweet. “Elizabeth May is killing it,” came another. Maclean’s magazine, which hosted the debate, even tweeted a graphic showing the uptick in mentions of May’s name. It’s May fever! Canada is going Green! And so on!

Granted, Elizabeth May is a welcome presence in these debates. She’s more genteel and well-mannered than her opponents. She acknowledges when they may have good ideas. And, well, she’s a woman — which is itself a nice shot of diversity in the otherwise stuffily white, male field of federal politics, where debates often play out like three differently coloured neckties snapping at one another. But here’s the thing: Elizabeth May is a distraction. She’s an appreciated, refreshing distraction, maybe. But a distraction nonetheless.

Now I’m not much of a gambling man. But if I was, I’d wager everything I had on Elizabeth May and the Green Party not forming a federal government. Then again, what bookie would take that bet? It’d be like betting on the second law of thermodynamics. They’re not going to win.

Elizabeth May is a hardworking parliamentarian and a valued progressive voice in Canada. She also, at times, seems sort of, well, eccentric (to put it charitably).

Remember her wild tweet-storm about the dangers of wireless Internet, about how it’s a “human carcinogen” that may be responsible for the disappearance of pollinating insects? Remember last year when she presented a petition calling for a government investigation into what “really” happened on 9/11? Or the time she defended Jian Ghomeshi after the news of his sexual assault allegations came out? There was also the time when she said Omar Khadr had “more class than the whole f---ing cabinet” at the Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner earlier this year, which, admittedly was pretty great.

If any other leader of a federal political party did these things, they’d be railroaded. But May always gets a pass, such weird outbursts and oddball behaviour attributable to her not-unpleasant image as Canada’s ex-hippie aunt who maybe had one too many glasses of merlot over Thanksgiving dinner. But the harsher truth is this: nobody really cares when Elizabeth May does these things because Elizabeth May doesn’t really matter. Not in the neck-and-neck-and-neck race for prime minister, anyway.

If anything, it sometimes seems like May and the Greens are more useful to conservative (and Conservative) interests than progressive ones, drawing voters (and especially young voters) away from other political parties that may be slightly less progressive but immeasurably more electable. She’s intelligent, and talented, and admirable. But she’s a sideshow.

As we sink into the months-long federal election drama, there’s an important, illustrative lesson we can learn from the smart, eccentric, cussing Elizabeth May. As noble and blindly principled as it is to think that politics and democracy is all about “voting with your heart” (as it’s often called, moronically), the reality is quite different. Politics is, and has always been, and probably always will be, not about making the best choice, but the least-worst choice.

John Semley is a freelance writer.

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