Sean’s a good guy…he cares strongly about the things he fights for, tries to do the right thing, and I personally think that’s what you want in a politician. I knew several people who weren’t voting NPA but they were voting for Sean. You could put is letter in the sour grapes bucket, but I think he’s just being honest…can’t fault him for that.

I’m somewhat sympathetic to Sean’s position. His putative “leader” and her campaign was a disaster that probably decreased his vote count. I don’t blame him at all for being angry and discouraged.

And yet, I think he also has to take some of the responsibility for his loss, and if he isn’t prepared to do that, perhaps he wasn’t as good a candidate as many hoped (including me, generally).

Let’s start with his party choice. Sean cannot claim to be ignorant of how the NPA works, he’s been ensconced in the party machine for a while, he’s no newcomer and should know a bit about the organisation and its values (I say this as a former active party member myself). Anton has been quite erratic for some time now, which Sean surely must have noticed before the morning of Nov 20. In the video below, it sure doesn’t sound much like Sean was having reservations about Anton, unless perhaps Nick Kouvalis was standing out of camera range with a gun pointed at Sean making him say nice things:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEx6DnngNsw

Although I’m not a fan of many NPA candidates these days, I recognised, and heard from others, that Sean is a decent guy, and I really wanted to vote for him. In fact, right up until the 18th I had him on my personal voting list. But he was removed from it on the morning of the 19th.

I’d written him a letter on Nov 14 outlining some concerns I had with the “Safe Streets” proposal that he posted on his website and that he was promoting as one of his key platform planks. It was a critical letter, but it was polite and constructive and invited clarification and amplification. I’m sure in the latter days of the campaign he was very busy, but I’d have been satisfied with a simple, quick message that simply said, “I respect your concerns and would like to talk about them, but I won’t be able to address them fully before election day.”

However, I have to this moment received no reply whatsoever.

I might have even been feeling charitable enough to overlook this lapse and give him the benefit of the doubt, but Anton’s chicken stunt outside of city hall pushed me over the edge and I just said “to hell with it” and scratched Sean’s name off my list, since I’d seen no noticeable hint that he disapproved of Anton’s antics.

Now that he seems to be pulling his marbles and pouting in his room with the door closed, I’m kind of glad I didn’t vote for him. If he’s “withdrawing from public life and service” because he can’t be a councillor, he’s perhaps not too imaginative. Surely there other ways to serve your community beside being on city council? It makes me wonder how committed he was in the first place.

I did vote for Sean and I would have done more than that if he had the guts to say this during the election.

@Jeff L 6
As I said on the other thread, the NPA has become schizophrenic, relying on developer money to campaign to reach a voter base that is largely and understandably anti-development.

Developer money should be removed from civic campaigns. Its far too much of a conflict of interest. Vancouver was born on real estate hucksterism and it still beats too strongly within the city’s psyche. The province needs to overhaul civic campaign funding in other ways: disallowing foreign money and allowing individual residents contributions to be tax deductable.

Jason, oh I agree absolutely. It mystifies me why many voters, especially COPE supporters, seem to have the misguided notion that Vision is not a developer supported party. In fact if you look at many issues, Vision is as much NPA-lite as COPE-lite. A perfect example would be laneway houses, brought in by the NPA and supported heartily by Vision.

The same would be true of the ward issue, should it come to the fore again. If you look at the electoral map Vision now has the most to lose should wards ever be implemented.

I find it absolutely astounding that the focus of the discourse is about the NPAs shortcomings in the last election. The NPA have doubled their presence on council. People have overwhelmingly said that while they appreciate Gregor’s lead they no longer feel the unholy alliance with COPE is acceptable.

No longer can Vision stifle debate because they only have one person opposing them. No longer can Vision hide behind COPE and try to make people forget they are also heavily funded by the development community.

Saturday night showed the importance of controlling the message. Vancouver has evolved from the tiny village we once loved. It is now a truly world-class city, and along with being a world-class city comes the need for world-class politics.

No more can city councillors be elected just because they have a strong sense of wanting to be a good citizen. Those days are over. They died when Vision Vancouver was created. Vision is not about the candidates. Vision is about the smoke and mirrors that it takes to make enough people go to the polls and vote for you.

It’s a sad day for Vancouver. Gone are the strong politicians of 1900s… What we’re left with now are spineless, toe-the-line, hypocrites who are more interested in pleasing their donors and a select few special interests than actually doing what’s best for all Vancouverites.

The only happy point for me, Adriane Carr has finally been elected. I can’t say she independently earned the place on council this time around, but call it her “life-time achievement award” for constantly showing up to every last election (I think she even wanted to be President of my strata council at one time) and adding a lot of interesting ideas.

I look forward to Carr, Affleck and Ball to be great representation at council and I wish them all the luck in the world. They’ll need it against such a formidable machine.

“Macdonald, one of the harshest critics of Vision’s separated bike lanes in Downtown Vancouver…”
+
And AGT says that Vision Vancouver are eco-fascists.
=
REJECTED OLD FARTS

@ Paul, #11:

It is now a truly world-class city, and along with being a world-class city comes the need for world-class politics.

I almost entirely agree with you on this. I think that Vancouver is a lot more city, and a lot less town, than it used to be. I think it’s only a minor player on the world stage, but I do agree that we need politicians that govern Vancouver like it’s a city instead of a town.

Gone are the strong politicians of 1900s… What we’re left with now are spineless, toe-the-line, hypocrites who are more interested in pleasing their donors and a select few special interests than actually doing what’s best for all Vancouverites.

This seems a curious statement to me. I can see that you believe the Vision administration is bad news for Vancouver, but what seems odd to me is that you look back nostalgically on the twentieth century as a bygone era of selfless politicians who didn’t pay their debts to donors with political favours and were not beholden to special interests. I think you are longing for a non-existent time.

@ rf,

However, Is it too far out of the box to think that a full COPE slate on the ballot, or at least a COPE mayoral candidate, would have made the election an actual nailbiter?

I don’t think that suggestion is a reach at all. Certainly if COPE had run a candidate for mayor it would have changed everything, and I also believe that it would have cost Robertson some votes. COPE supporters might point out that they are happier with Robertson as mayor than they would have been with Anton as mayor, so even though it wasn’t the “ultimate” result for COPE, from their perspective it could have been worse.

I would suggest that a voting system where voters rank mayoral candidates in order of preference would be better than first-past-the-post. That way vote-splitting would be eliminated as a consideration. (Vote splitting is something that hurts political parties of all stripes – just ask the Reform party.)

Is there any other reasonable conclusion that the COPE alliance sealed the deal for Vision…..and provided ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in return for COPE?

… so I agree that the alliance was instrumental to Vision’s success, but I’d argue that COPE did get something out of it: they got a non-NPA government. (Though they didn’t get much more than that.)

I hope david cadman got his loan to COPE paid back.

I agree he had a great beard. Fuller and less patchy than tim louis’

ThinkOutsideABox, for the better part of 3 years Gregor only showed up to 50% of the Translink meetings, that didn’t seem to catch on with voters. I would guess that doesn’t seem to be a big issue with voters in the city.

I’ll be watching intently on how contract negotiations go this time around. Let’s remember that Gregor and Vision had the lovely benefit of not having to go through a round of contract negotiations with city staff.

It will be interesting to see if Vision will be able to convince their union buddies that the taxpayer purse is dry and they can’t have everything they want. Or will they roll-over and be stuck trying to explain to the electorate why their taxes are increasing 10% every year.

Paul T. – You’re wrong on Gregor Robertson’s TransLink attendance as it was 75% and Meggs was at the rest. Of course, the 50% myth was an NPA talking point so I see where you’re coming from.

Spartikus….

Firstly, until the NPA released his horrible attendance record it was at 50%. Here’s the list of the meetings and who attended.

Dec 10 ’08 – Gregor Robertson
Sep 16 ’09 – Gregor Robertson
Oct 23 ’09 – Geoff Meggs
Feb 3 ’10 – Geoff Meggs
Apr 14 ’10 – Geoff Meggs
Jun 16 ’10 – Gregor Robertson
Dec 9 ’10 – Gregor Robertson
Feb 8 ’11 – Geoff Meggs
Jun 28 ’11 – Gregor Robertson
Jul 28 ’11 – Absent

You’re more than welcome to look for yourself on the Translink website. The minutes are there for all to see.

Also Sparti, you’ll notice that INDEED the city was absent from one meeting. Not a good track record for a mayor who tried to convince us he was really into transit.

Andy, like I said, the quote was said on Labour Day. On that date the count stood at:

Gregor 5
Meggs 4
Absent 1

That’s a 50% attendance rate for Gregor.

Yes, after the NPA took aim at that record the Mayor decided it was probably important for him to show up at these meetings, you know, since he was in a campaign.

Since the original comment there have been 3 more meetings. I know Gregor went to at least 2. The minutes for the 3rd have not been posted yet.

So his record got better, but only after the NPA called him on it.

re-hashing the past. what a waste of time.
Vision won. move on.

Hold Robertson et all to their attendance records going forth.

I am more interested in knowing what they are or not accomplishing.

And this just in – Occupy thankfully leaves as per the injunction pursued by the city.

No drama, no melodramatics.

Thanks to city workers for their patience. Thanks to the administration for their level-headed approach.

And thanks to occupy for complying with the injunction. Now get your crap and leave pronto, thanks.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/11/21/bc-occupy-vancouver.html

@mezzanine #29,

“And this just in – Occupy thankfully leaves as per the injunction pursued by the city.”

Not quite. A little drama, as they blocked traffic for a while, but it was pretty much a non-issue in the end. Took them a while to get around to it, but I think Vision handled Occupy thing pretty well in the end.

I guess that’s kind of my point, Richard.

If COPE had run a full slate….Gregor probably would not have won.

I don’t think anyone one person gets to decide “what is better for Vancouver”. That’s a partisan comment…. at best.

My whole point was that Vision is indebted to COPE, yet is hardly going to be accountable. It’s like they borrowed money from someone they knew was going to get killed.

This is a 3 party city (maybe 4..). If each party had run a mayoral candidate, Susan Anton would be mayor.

But hey….shoulda coulda woulda

The only spoils for me in this election is knowing that David Chudnovsky looks like a twit and a lousy Kingmaker (although he did make a King..)….even if Cadman wants to blame it on Louis.

OK fun with stats….

I love analyzing how the votes played out for council on a party basis. (Yes, go ahead and make the “too much time on his hands” comments.)

From 2008 to 2011 the NPA managed to get 61k more votes for their candidates than they did in 2008. That’s an improvement of 15%. Seeing as voter turn-out was 16% higher, that’s a realized loss of about 1% support.

When we run the same numbers with Vision Vancouver (of course taking into account there are only 7 candidates this time compared to 8 last time) we see a startling reality. They only got 1% higher average vote per candidate, but when you take into account the 16% increase in voter turnout, that means their support has actually fallen by 15%.

The really telling numbers are with COPE. In 2008 they garnered 51k votes on average per candidate, but in 2011 they only managed to get an average of 44k votes per candidate. Once you take into account the increase in voter turnout, that means they lost almost 30% support.

And finally the combined VV & COPE number of votes is 3% lower in 2011 than it was in 2008, once you factor in the increase turnout, their support has fallen by almost 19%.

I think this shows that while Gregor’s support is fairly solid, the Vision brand has taken a hit. But the party that is most in need of life support is COPE. It’s not even close for them anymore. They will have to do something drastic.

AND one final comment about the stats. It’s funny that with one exception the Vision candidates pretty much stayed in the same order for popularity. Louie first down to Meggs last.

Well, Sean and Suzanne could have stood up to the whinosaurs and rejected that demeaning, puerile nonsense and taken the high road. That was their undoing.
But they didn’t and they’re losers, like all the rest of the NPA machine. As for the two who made it? Who cares?

The Thought of The Night

“Cadman blames Louis for the COPE’s Death! Ah… Sacre Bleu! I see that the signature on the Pact With the Devil is that of Cadman’s!”

Vision stole COPE’s identity for the purpose of getting elected. Period.
But here’s the beaut… COPE gave it away, willingly, in the purest Vichy government way, ever!
COPE Vancouver members… repeat after me:
“ICH BIN EIN STUPIDER”
Then call for your AGM and ‘Fire’ your Muppets Executive, and maybe, just maybe repent and get in touch with the good people from the newly formed NSV… maybe they’d let you in, for a coffee and muffin.
Maybe they will…
I wouldn’t!
Good riddance though 🙂 !

We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

Those are some crazy serious rose coloured glasses you got there.

Paul T.

The NPA campaign was a miserable failure because it failed to give voters something to believe in. There was no inspired and heartfelt vision of what Vancouver is and could be.

You can look at the math and crunch numbers all you like, but the fact remains that Vision has complete control of council, parks, and schools. That is so clear a failure that no creep in voter support can mask it.

After two repeat disasters for campaigns, here’s what’s clear: the NPA can’t win without the support of its base (2008) and the NPA can’t win by appealing to its base alone(2011).

As a right leaning civic voter (and former long time NPA member), these last two elections were hard to watch as the NPA failed to define a platform that not only got the attention of their base but also inspired the undecideds to join them.

Every single vision candidate that ran was elected and you’re arguing the NPA has momentum? I want what you’re smoking.

The NPA is at a crossroads. It has to decide if it wants to be a serious player at the Civic level or whither away and die with the likes of TEAM.

I have to agree with Sean.

This campaign was great if it was 1968 but this is 2011. It was not technologically advanced in its messaging, communications or technology.

It suffered from a lack of a coherent message and failed to heed the message sent to it in ’08 by voters.

The landscape is littered with parties that fail to recognize what it’s core values are, who it attracts and the failure to adapt to an ever changing voter base.

The reality is Vision Vancouver represents the new establishment of and in the City and has adapted to this establishment position by ensuring it keeps up to date with who and what it represents.

The NPA not so much, mores the pity.

Trust Paul to have been able to find a way to ingeniuously interpret this result as demonstrating the NPA’s core strength.

BTW, regarding the thorny issue of anonymity – is their anyone who didn’t add 2 + 2 and connect you with your twitter posts? Anyone paying attention here actually knows your building & suite number!