Why running for office is the hardest job interview you'll ever go through

There is no job application more demanding than running for public office, according to two people who should know.

Gary Mar is a former Progressive Conservative MLA and cabinet minister from Calgary and Ray Martin is a former leader of the Alberta NDP and former Edmonton MLA. On Wednesday, they joined host Rob Brown on the CBCCalgary News to talk about the nuts and bolts and chronic fatigue of the political candidate in themiddle of an election campaign.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: Hundreds of candidates running for 87 seats translatesinto tens of thousands of doors knocked. It's a pretty strange way to apply for a job!Just how exhausted are the candidates at this point of the campaign?

Mar: You're really running on adrenaline and 28 days goes a lot faster than you might think. I would expect that all of these hundreds of candidates are working pretty darn hard anddon't feel it until the day after the election. That's when they're exhausted.

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Martin:I'verun as a candidate 16 times, so I know what these people are facing right now and Gary's right:you sort of float on adrenaline and at least provincially it's a shorter campaign.

That's a benefit to everybody, frankly.

You just go on adrenaline andyou look at your itinerary: one day and then you've got another day and thenanother day and another day. And when election day finally comes, you're excited, obviously. But some candidates are going to be very disappointed while others are going to be very happy.

They'll all be tired. No doubt about that.

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Q: I'm wondering about the disappointment because Gary is, you know, part of the Conservative's big blue machine that kept winning and winning, but there are other candidates out there right now who are looking at the polls and they might be pretty dispirited by what they're seeing, thinkingthey're unlikely to win.

Ray, how do you keep that energy up and push right to the finish in the face of stuff like that?

Martin:In every riding you think you have a chance of winning or you wouldn't be out there. What you have to do is keep going. And right now, what they're doing is looking at pulling the vote to get to the advancepolls because now probably everybody most people have made up their mind.

What you have to be concerned about as the candidates and their campaigns is getting that vote out.

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That's what they're concentrating on now and they're probably working very hard on itthe major two parties especially, because they sense victory and they have to do that. It's all about pulling the vote now.

Q: Voters seem to be thinking about the party leader first in voting but theyactually votefor candidates in their riding. As a candidate who's tied to a leader, can that be frustrating sometimes at the doorstep when you're trying to sell yourself but know you really have to package that pitch with the leader?

Mar: With the way that we've got our parliamentary democracy which is a 500-year-old work in progress from the Westminster parliamentary system a leader plays a very, very important part of your success. So of course there are times when you want to present yourself as an individual on the doorstep. But I can tell you that when I was first elected in 1993, Ralph Klein had long, long coattails and I was able to take advantage of that.

Obviously you want to talk about your own characteristics as well. And Ralph would say if you're the candidate in a race, you should always race like you're the last horse in the race. So whatever it takes to get out there on a doorstep and present yourself to people, that makes a big impression.

Ralph would say if you're the candidate in a race, you should always race like you're the last horse in the race.- Gary Mar, on advice from former premier Ralph Klein

I think Ray found the same thing. He had a lot of electoral success because he would do the work in the constituency between elections and during an election at the doors.

Q: You also had the benefit of being the party leader, Ray. Without getting into the weeds on the current campaign, would you want to be out there on the hustings in the face of what we're seeing out there right now?

Martin: Let me put it this way. There's so many big issues and I'm a little worried thatit's happening not only now in Albertabutall over:that politics has become a little mean-spirited.

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For Gary Mar, he's a good guy. I liked him, you know, and I found that when we were there together, there was a good feeling. Peter Loughheed,too,I liked. Don Gettyas well.

We didn't always agree. But now I find ita little more mean-spirited.

Andthat's unfortunate because we tend not to get to the bigger issues discussed, I think, and that worries me.

With files from CBC News.