Columnist with La Presse

Say it ain't so! Jean-François Lisée has quit the Parti Québécois leadership race? What will Quebec's journalists write about now?

Everybody has known for months that the dice are loaded: Pierre Karl Péladeau will be the PQ's next leader come May 15. But at least with Mr. Lisée, there would have been some sparkle in the race. Tough questions would have been asked; cheap shots would have been taken. It would have been a sporting event.

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Mr. Lisée, a former journalist turned adviser for PQ premiers Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard, was by far the smartest and best-read candidate. He has an idea on every topic and can manufacture political schemes at lightning speed.

In former premier Pauline Marois's cabinet, where he was international relations minister, his colleagues quickly discovered that the tireless political analyst they admired from television panels could be a galling giver of lessons, always ready to offer his better ideas on everyone else's file. Fortunately for them, he was frequently off travelling.

When his government was trying to sell its so-called "secular" or "Quebec values" charter, Mr. Lisée co-signed an op-ed piece for The New York Times with the charter's father, Bernard Drainville. This bill was legislation Thomas Jefferson himself would have approved of, they said. Leave it to Mr. Lisée to try and explain one of America's greatest minds to Americans themselves.

Then, guess what? After the PQ's spring election disaster, Mr. Lisée said he would never have voted for the charter. For a "humanist" like him, firing a civil servant for wearing a religious symbol went way too far, he wrote. Sure, he still supported the principles, but Mr. Drainville, the only other serious contender for leadership, was too radical.

This left all his colleagues baffled. Never mind his new-found humanism; it was seen as an act of backstabbing.

Mr. Lisée, a man who can make fit a square idea into a circle without batting an eyelid, said he was misunderstood – if you went back over his body of work, you would find nothing but consistency and clear principles.

This, for his PQ colleagues, was one smart-ass act too many. Nobody would support him for the leadership. He had a hard time collecting the 2,000 mandatory signatures.

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It's too bad, really – Mr. Lisée was probably the only other candidate capable of challenging Mr. Péladeau. Mr. Drainville, he of the charter, has adopted a boring, consensual style. He's aiming for the No. 2 spot and knows all too well that hell hath no fury like a PKP scorned.

Just ask Mr. Lisée. Last fall, he said it was "total nonsense" and a political "ticking bomb" for Mr. Péladeau to maintain ownership of his media empire while seeking the party leadership. For a former journalist and political analyst, it was just stating the obvious, but for Mr. Péladeau, it amounted to high treason. Mr. Péladeau wouldn't even shake his hand after that.

Disappointing as the lost horse race might be for journalists, the biggest loser in Mr. Lisée's departure might be the PQ itself. The main candidate in its leadership race won't be seriously challenged. It's one thing to be a figure of authority and success in business, but politics is something else. So far, Mr. Péladeau's ideas have failed to impress. A relatively poor speaker beyond the field of business, he runs away from all-candidate debates. He prefers to tour the province in his chartered plane, being acclaimed by PQ militants as the new great hope.

That's no way to get into game shape for the real fight against the Liberals, especially with support for independence stuck at 40-year lows and the PQ ranked fourth among 18- to 24-year-olds.