Thursday, September 13, 2007

Calgary's municipal election

It's a month away and I've recently dove into everything I could find on the candidates and issues. Here's the wiki page - unsurprisingly facing accusations of partisan re-writing.

For mayor, I find myself leaning towards the incumbent Dave Bronconnier. This would be the first time I've voted for an incumbent...hmm, I think the word I'm searching for is ever. He stood up to the provincial government on broken promises and won. Anyone who can make Alberta's Tories as uncomfortable as Bronco manifestly has earns points with me.

Plus he used to work for Telus until they fired him. That's a major character reference in his favour.

My ward is Ward 8, the heart of the inner city. The incumbent Madeline King has a pretty good record of concern on homelessness, and she didn't fall for the silly and divisive 'support the troops' sticker hysteria. On the minus side her solution to inner city crime is to put video cameras everywhere. A short sighted piece of proto-totalitarianism with zero evidence that it would actually reduce crime by increasing surveillance.

I'm leaning towards Lindsay Luhnau. Enthusiastic, young, idealistic with great environmental cred. She won't win but the level of support she gets might inform the policy positions of whoever does.

The only thing that might swing me to King is if it looks like perennial loser Steve Chapman might win. He's a member of the Progressive Group for Independent Fascists - Business, and buddy buddy with Craig 'vote Conservative or fuck off' Chandler.

See: Calgary's municipal election Support the Troops edition

Hit the Calgary label to see all my civic election posts.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the endorsement.

Lindsay Luhnau

Cliff said...

You're welcome and good luck.

Unknown said...

I was leaning towards John Mar, but after reading Lindsay's policy statements, I think she's going to be my pick this time.

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