After watching the second presidential debate in its entirety, I had a pretty good sense of what flat television appearances look like. The phrase “failure to connect” appropriately defined the entire experience — except maybe for when McCain shook the naval officer’s hand towards the end of the affair. Even Obama’s well-groomed confidence looked for the most part like a cardboard cut-out of his impassioned self.

So it was with a rather anxious vibe in my social antennae that I arrived at Stéphane Dion’s Much on Demand appearance at Much Music yesterday. The Liberal leader would be sitting down to kick it with a couple of VJs less than half his age, in front of the type of audience usually reserved for on-command screaming during Miley Cyrus and Hilary Duff press junkets. If McCain and Obama’s handlers couldn’t coach either of those two through a human performance at a town hall meeting, what chance would Dion’s oft-bungled campaign have in a similar, yet far more tenuous, situation?

Once I’m inside the cramped storefront studio at Queen and John, I take up position in the elevated office space behind the camera boom. From here, overlooking the photographer scrum, I count about 40 youths on the set, looking fairly non-threatening and yet surprisingly un-ironic — a generic everykid cross-section if ever there was one. They look young, almost too young to vote (although watching the show later on, they all looked of age) but at least they seem sincere — especially the girl with the raven-coloured bob in her “Dionista” t-shirt. Speaking of dedication, even though the weather has turned to an insistent drizzle, there’s a small crowd of supporters with red-and-white placards outside the front window. And Tragically Hip guitarist Bobby Baker is sitting just off camera, here to support the leader. Now it truly is a MOD event.

After a few warm-up exercises in whooping on cue, and a bunch of introduction, videos and commercials (live TV is far less exciting in person) Stéphane Dion enters from the back of the room, his slow gait punctuated with a few non-committal waves. He seems smaller in person as he passes by my perch. And once under the blinding lights, his pale skin and white hair seem to glow — almost translucent. Thankfully, from a quick glance at the plasma screen monitor to my right, the on-screen image is far more forgiving.

Devon Soltendieck’s gleaming blondness sits across from Dion on some kind of modernist nightmare of an acrylic box, which can’t be comfortable for either of them. The first few minutes of the conversation come across with the same aesthetic. Devon is used to affable humour and does his best to lighten the tone, even laughing at something Stéphane says — although between the quiet in-house monitors and the snarky official-looking press people (they have laminates, share lots of in-jokes and are likely travelling with the candidate), I can’t hear everything that’s going on.

Despite my audio difficulties, it’s clear that Dion’s first few answers are far too long and rambling. I check out the audience and notice a lot of wandering eyes, searching the studio’s ADD decor for something to break the tedium. I wish that this taping was equipped with the ratings meter from CNN’s coverage of the US debate. I need a judgemental graphic to hold my attention.

Finally, Dion gets a personality-probing question from someone’s webcam about whether he was a hard marker as a professor. And it’s here that the leader seems to switch into teacher mode, where he is almost instantaneously more comfortable trying to relate to the audience. On this note MuchMusic breaks for a commercial, or some music videos (same thing, really) and Dion gets to mingle with the audience, glad-handing and answering a few questions.

Hannah Simone handles the second half of the interview, which delves into Dion’s strong topics: the environment and the arts. Dion again tries to explain the Green Shift, and even I am kind of lost despite the fact that I’ve been reading up on the thing for months now. Why does it come across so complicated? The Green Shift is like this election’s electoral reform. But Dion manages to assert some key enviro-speak and whip the crowd up (without producer encouragement), mugging for the camera a few times to emphasize his point. Hell, hell even sounds confident introducing the new Katy Perry video (“Hot N Cold," not “Ur so Gay").

By the end of the show, Dion is super-comfortable. He answers a question about trusting politicians by emphasizing that this election represents a vote for the future. He treads lightly on the Obama-patented notion of change, but lets it hang there as a viable option. And it’s not an impossible thought. Dion’s been climbing steadily in the polls for the past few weeks, and his appearance as the first leader to Rock the Vote can only help sell his image to a large and (somewhat) captive audience. Besides, the whole thing came across far better on screen. I watched it again this morning and was surprised at how smooth and engaged Dion appeared.

Dion’s campaign runs on the same principles as showing up at a party where you don’t recognize anyone. At first it’s awkward, and you want to bail out. You probably won’t have any human communication for at least 20 minutes. But if you stick around, eventually people start to realize that maybe you’re supposed to be there. And then one conversation will lead to another, and soon you’re slurping shots of Jäger with the host and posing for photos by The Cobra Snake. The campaign may be a little weird; but that doesn’t make it wrong.

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