Sure, you might accuse me of trying to give career Trudeau-haters like our own Peter Worthington a heart attack. But even his occasional angry call-backs to a legacy he sees as being at the heart of everything wrong in this country -- from those annoying samesex marriages to that persistent Quebec wagging the Canadian dog to the shoot-out that now settles NHL games -- have a doleful tone. Even the people who hated PET loved hating him.

Trudeau certainly lives on in the race for the new Liberal leader, all of whom are apparently vying to be the next Pierre, so often has the name been invoked. But one thing's missing -- sex.

Let others look for a brilliant academic thinker/wonk (Michael Ignatieff) or a passionate orator (Bob Rae). Such things do not a mania make. When we think back to Trudeaumania, it's festooned with images of celebrity girlfriends, a pillbox-hatted Barbra Streisand, a young and lovely Liona Boyd, Margot Kidder and Margaret Sinclair (the last two of whom suffered emotional breakdowns in later years -- coincidence?).

By that standard, the best candidate to be the new Trudeau is not only not running for Liberal leader, he's not even a Liberal. Peter MacKay, the Minister of Foreign, ahem, Affairs is, at least according to his media image, cat-nip for famous women. He had Condoleezza Rice giggling like a schoolgirl and giving between-the-lines hints that she'd move to Pictou to be with him -- just as soon as democracy flowers in the Middle East.

And then, of course, there was MacKay's daytime soap opera with Belinda Stronach, who bolted the Tories for the Liberals just in time to sit on the Opposition bench. Those tears he shed on the news might get him elected PM one day.

As for Belinda -- who has been caught red-lettered as the scarlet woman in Leaf tough guy Tie Domi's divorce -- I'm afraid she might still be subject to the great Canadian double-standard. For while Pierre achieved rock star status on the basis of his tom-catting, if the same held true for women, Kim Campbell would probably still be PM today.

If there was anybody on the Liberal side who could so much as seduce a bored waitress in Timmins on a Monday night, the party's return to glamour and, theoretically, power could almost be assured. After all, Stephen Harper may be many things, but Bill Clinton he's not. And even the Americans, for all their puritanical sermonizing, would have given Clinton a third term according to every poll.

The problem: Most serious candidates for Liberal leader are married with children. No, wait, I just remembered my wife reads this! Actually, what I meant to say is that being married and having children is a good thing, a very good thing in fact.

But it wouldn't hurt their cause to at least set up a few photo-ops of the pretenders with some ardent celebrity female admirers, just to let us know they have the right stuff.

As a lefty-icon, Bob Rae is a no-brainer. A little come-hither look would see him posing with every sympatico female celeb from Sarah Polley to Susan Sarandon to The Dixie Chicks. (Fair or not, politicians on the left do better with a female demo. Put it this way, you don't go to the Fraser Institute to meet girls).

Ditto Gerard Kennedy. Even when he was provincial education minister, most of the voters in his Parkdale/High Park riding apparently thought he was an N-Dipper anyway. Plus, when he ran the Daily Bread Food Bank, the staff nicknamed him "Elvis." How promising is that?

Ken Dryden? Yeah, okay, he's an ex-jock. But years ago I had a friend who was model-handsome but dull. We took him to bars to meet the women he attracted and then turned off. Add 30 years and Dryden is that guy. I'm thinking Joan Allen.

And yes, there are still some celebrity women with Marilyn-syndrome who are turned on by brains -- like, say, Sharon Stone, who married a newspaper editor (c'mon, in Hollywood that's practically Stephen Hawking). Others with a likely brain-crush: Jessica Lange (married a playwright), Naomi Watts (had an affair with a schlubby arthouse documentarian) and Canadian girl Rachel McAdams, who hosted the technical night of the Oscars last year.

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