Friday, September 21, 2012

Some notes on an election to come

Today Colin Hansen announced he won't seek re-election in Vancouver-Quilchina. This probably means Chrisie Clark won't be running in Vancouver-Point Grey, a seat she holds presently and would almost certainly lose.
That is, if she runs at all: I'm still waiting for the "bombshell" announcement that she has some personal exigency that necessitates resignation...
I wonder what Mr "HST" Hansen has waiting for him in the wings?

I cannot believe the rumour that Stockwell Day is lining up to take Christie's place: he has experience losing, and doesn't appear to enjoy it. Is it even possible he has a big enough ego to be persuaded he could right the BCLiberal ship by May? (Not to mention the impossibility of seeing Stockwell Day as ANY kind of Liberal!)

A few days ago Dr. Andrew Weaver, Nobel laureate, announced he is going to run for the Greens in Oak Bay-Gordon Head against the less-than-formidable Ida Chong.
He should, just by reputation, be a shoo-in; if I lived in that constituency, I'd have to find reasons not to vote for him before choosing someone else.
Of course, it's possible there may be reasons I don't know about: apparently he ran for a school board position in Victoria in 2002 and came in 15th out of 19. But that was before he became famous.
I don't suppose there's any way the NDP will decline to run a candidate, especially as the constituency association has already selected Jessica van der Veen, who lost to Ida by over 500 votes last time.
And of course Ida has, thanks largely to a failed recall campaign, actually formed an organization in the interim. So I'm guessing Ida squeaks in again.
Unless, of course, Weaver can convince enough Liberal and NDP voters to vote for him.
Like Elizabeth May federally.
And Oak Bay has a long history of supporting disparate candidates: think Scott Wallace, Brian Smith, Elizabeth Cull, and latterly Ida Chong.
If he can get any kind of organization whatever behind him, I wouldn't put up any bets against Weaver.

Jane Sterk, the Green leader, is running in the next-door constituency, Victoria-Beacon Hill, against NDPer Carole James, the incumbent, who won with over 55% of the vote in 2009. That's going to be a model campaign, managed by our own Paul Barnett, and Carole has done nothing but improve her electability, so it's not hard to predict the winner.