Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Mandel!
So, just as I predicted, the St. Albert election results sucked. Just as I predicted, Jung-Suk Ryu got himself a well-deserved thrashing. But there were a couple of things I didn't predict: the Red Sox won, and Stephen Mandel got himself elected Mayor Of Edmonton.
It's fashionable at times like these for the self-satisfied pundits (and, foolish as they are, regular readers of this space will surely realize that no pundit is more self-satisfied than this one) to say that they told you so. I didn't. I didn't tell you anything approximating this. If I had bothered to tell you anything, I would have told you that Bill Smith would eke out a narrow victory over Robert Noce, and that Mandel would finish a distant third. This was completely unexpected, and somewhat inspiring, really.
I mean, Professor Lightbody was predicting that either Smith or Noce had a chance, and that who won would depend on who did a better job of mobilizing their support. He also predicted voter turnout closer to twenty-five percent than the thirty-five. What happened? Smith and Noce both mobilized their support, resulting in a voter turnout of more than forty percent. And a bunch of people hitherto unattached to any campaign came out and supported the best man. So, rich businessman though he is, on some level this has the look of a populist outpouring.
There's more, too: Stephen Mandel ought to be, by all rights, a lousy politician. He's never minced a word, beaten around a bush, or suffered a fool gladly in his life, and he lacks the Trudeau-esque charisma to pull it off. But he's given hope to all the abrasive, uncharismatic, and condescending (Shannon: note proper spelling) among us who would aspire to public office. Such a person can win (as long as, the cynics among you hasten to add, such a person has piles of business connections and thousands of dollars to spend on advertising, to which I respond "Stop raining on my parade, asshole"). Roman Kotovych called Mandel the Steve Smith of civic politics: "He's abrasive, he has ideas, he's got all the major endorsements, and he's going to lose." Right on most counts, Roman, but not all. Sleep with one eye open.
More lessons: Mandel spent lots and won. But Jung-Suk Ryu spend more than any other candidate in Ward 5. It would not surprise me if he spent more than any other Councillor candidate in the city - at any rate, he must surely be among the top five. And he finished sixth. There's some justice in the world, even if his collapse was for all the wrong reasons - that he committed the relatively minor sin of inventing a campaign manager, rather than that he committed the much greater sin of being in politics only for himself. Instead, Mike Nickel won; there's work to be done yet.
Stephen Mandel's not perfect - he's much more pro-development than me (despite being the only one of the three candidates to support a lobbyist registry), and has more of a temper than I'd like in a mayor. But I put to you that that matters less than the fact that instead of a mindless cheer-leader or an unabashed ladder-climber in City Hall, Edmonton's now got a genuine straight-shooter.
Start shooting, Stephen.
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So, just as I predicted, the St. Albert election results sucked. Just as I predicted, Jung-Suk Ryu got himself a well-deserved thrashing. But there were a couple of things I didn't predict: the Red Sox won, and Stephen Mandel got himself elected Mayor Of Edmonton.
It's fashionable at times like these for the self-satisfied pundits (and, foolish as they are, regular readers of this space will surely realize that no pundit is more self-satisfied than this one) to say that they told you so. I didn't. I didn't tell you anything approximating this. If I had bothered to tell you anything, I would have told you that Bill Smith would eke out a narrow victory over Robert Noce, and that Mandel would finish a distant third. This was completely unexpected, and somewhat inspiring, really.
I mean, Professor Lightbody was predicting that either Smith or Noce had a chance, and that who won would depend on who did a better job of mobilizing their support. He also predicted voter turnout closer to twenty-five percent than the thirty-five. What happened? Smith and Noce both mobilized their support, resulting in a voter turnout of more than forty percent. And a bunch of people hitherto unattached to any campaign came out and supported the best man. So, rich businessman though he is, on some level this has the look of a populist outpouring.
There's more, too: Stephen Mandel ought to be, by all rights, a lousy politician. He's never minced a word, beaten around a bush, or suffered a fool gladly in his life, and he lacks the Trudeau-esque charisma to pull it off. But he's given hope to all the abrasive, uncharismatic, and condescending (Shannon: note proper spelling) among us who would aspire to public office. Such a person can win (as long as, the cynics among you hasten to add, such a person has piles of business connections and thousands of dollars to spend on advertising, to which I respond "Stop raining on my parade, asshole"). Roman Kotovych called Mandel the Steve Smith of civic politics: "He's abrasive, he has ideas, he's got all the major endorsements, and he's going to lose." Right on most counts, Roman, but not all. Sleep with one eye open.
More lessons: Mandel spent lots and won. But Jung-Suk Ryu spend more than any other candidate in Ward 5. It would not surprise me if he spent more than any other Councillor candidate in the city - at any rate, he must surely be among the top five. And he finished sixth. There's some justice in the world, even if his collapse was for all the wrong reasons - that he committed the relatively minor sin of inventing a campaign manager, rather than that he committed the much greater sin of being in politics only for himself. Instead, Mike Nickel won; there's work to be done yet.
Stephen Mandel's not perfect - he's much more pro-development than me (despite being the only one of the three candidates to support a lobbyist registry), and has more of a temper than I'd like in a mayor. But I put to you that that matters less than the fact that instead of a mindless cheer-leader or an unabashed ladder-climber in City Hall, Edmonton's now got a genuine straight-shooter.
Start shooting, Stephen.
