ThisElectionHasSevenDays
LeftVille
It’s always tough to gauge what is really going on down on the civic scene in Lotusland as election day approaches, internal party polls that are immediately splashed across the front pages of local CorpMedia print organs notwithstanding.
For all kinds of reasons, including the lack a ward system ’round here.
But, the thing to remember is that sometimes the issues that matter least, at least with respect to how the city will actually be run by the next administration, can make a big difference in the closing days of a civic campaign.
The 2008 example, which was the Olympic Village financing debacle that Mr Robertson and friends used to great advantage, is an easy one to recall.
But what about 2005?
Well, there was, of course, that Big Green Bus, but I think it would be a mistake not to also remember how he who would come to rule Spam-A-Lot before it went all Caucusy also sat down and broke bread for a rump-roast dinner with those who were too progressive for the real Mr. Green to bleed COPE votes from the Alliance.
And now?
Well, Bob Mackin makes a reasonable case that the game changer could be Occupy Vancouver.
And I know Ian Reid, who thinks of these things both in progressive and real-politick, nut-cutting terms, is worried by the bamboozlement factor, added and abetted by the local corpMedia mouthpieces, that could help float the nonsensical, anti-sensical party boat that is allegedly being steered by Ms. Always Campaigning.
But I have another thought.
Which is that the Independents sure are getting a lot more play around here this time around given all the Occupy talk.
And that seems to be especially true for those independents who are able to articulate a reasonable message that reasonates with 99.99% of the people in Vancouver who are not developers getting rich off of things like the development of the Cambie Street corridor*.
So.
Here’s the real question to ponder….
Is it possible for a couple of Independents to breakthrough without bleeding enough votes from the Alliance to allow the nonsense party to start closing libraries again?
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*And if anybody wants to see an example of the 0.01% at work, just keep your eyes open as you travel South on Cambie and cross 29th (by the entrance to the Park)….There are two signs that you will pass on your right just past that intersection, on the same piece of property in that block where all the houses have been bought up and are now up for auction….One is a ‘For Sale’ sign, and another is a civic election ‘Campaign’ sign….And guess what?….They both have the same last name on them.
Frances Bula, who had some issues with the actual mechanics of internal poll that the VSun trumpeted goes out of her way to not chide the guy whose byline is on the piece, Jeff Lee….But I’ve gotta wonder why, exactly, that poll was the dominant part of Mr. Lee’s lede…I mean, it would seem to me that stuff like this is worth reporting, perhaps, as part of a discussion on where the various camps ‘think’ they are and what buttons they are likely to push in the last days of an election campaign….But to make a questionable internal poll the dominant aspect of a front page story’s lede one week before the election?…Well, I’m sorry, but it is very hard for me to conclude that that is not a bit of a ‘push’ intentional or otherwise….
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