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Those voters who are either developers or work for developers and those who live in outlying suburbs had an interest in voting for Katz. Those who do not live in Winnipeg but live in the surrounding bedroom villages/exurbans areas who could not vote but supported either directly or indirectly had reason to exult. Yet anyone who lives in downtown Winnipeg who were deluded (as many voters often are) to vote for Katz will suffer. It is not to insult anyone necessarily to say one has been cheated or scammed; it is only to acknowledge the impact of PR and advertising. A third of those who voted for Ronald Reagan in his two elections did not support one single policy of his; another third did not agree with most of his agenda. That has been the success of the Right in the last 30 years; mobilizing people against their own interests. The Left is too wasted on cannabis and white wine to notice that.
I still don't know how Sam mobilized that vote. The Judy campaign's achievement of 91,000 votes and 43% of the popular vote would have been a winning effort in any other election. The Sam vote must have been primarily an anti-Judy vote, as Aristotleded24 has also suggested, and/or just a fear-of-change vote against what some saw as an unknown quantity. Sam really does represent for the most part, keeping things in Winnipeg exactly as they are (while quietly privatizing public services). My comment about voters who support that sentiment was merely to point out that many Winnipeggers do not recognize the real basic problems their city has, and they continue to support the avoidance of addressing those problems.
I only recently discovered some of the anti-Judy videos available on the net, some of which claim to answer "Who is Judy, really?" but only manage to make silly claims using red-scaremongering and the "soft on crime" trope. Really stupid.
So the reality is beginning to sink in. There were lots of municipal elections in Canada this month, and they had interesting results. Calgary voted for change in a big way. Several incumbent mayors throughout Ontario were defeated, as well as in Dauphin and Brandon, with several big name politicians losing in the latter 2 communities. Clearly, the desire for change was there. In Winnipeg, Sam's bungling included:
-questionable ethics
-lack of coherent plans, including flip-flopping on rapid transit, the frustration with active transportation plans and the new Bomber stadium, and the traffic circle backlash
-blatantly cynical electioneering, including the claim to hire more police officers and headline-driven response to crimes, and ridiculous claims about rising property taxes
Yet in spite of all of this, the best we could do was knock 5 points off Katz' results from 2006. What does this mean?
We screwed up badly. Marianne Cerilli had a far more superior platform, she just did not have the organization behind her.
The campaign to replace Katz should have started on October 26, 2006. The biggest share of the blame needs to go to the Winnipeg Citizen's Coalition. They've been around for 2 years, and I have yet to meet a single person who thought they were in any way effective. Look at their front page: what do they mean by "transparency" and "accountability?" What are these "community meetings" they keep talking about? Most importantly, what are the issues facing Winnipeggers, and why should we care? The report card idea to grade councillors was a great idea, but that came too late in the campaign. If your incumbent councillor either failed or was not running, not endorsing anybody did not help you make your decision. This report card should be a quarterly thing, so people have an idea. They should also have a communication strategy that highlights certain issues (i.e. transit, housing) and specific, timely concerns (i.e Veolia). That would create far more meaningful engagement with the community than simply handing out postcards and asking people to fill them out. Having some policy experts on hand who could show how to address these issues wouldn't hurt either. It would help them get around the media block that the right-wing media holds on the city. Speaking of media....
While some local bloggers (i.e. Policyfrog) have been sympathetic to specific left-wing issues, there is no major left presence in the local blog-o-sphere. We need to change that to get the word out. We also need a strategy to ensure that a wide variety of voices make it out, such as the CCPA Manitoba or former WPS Deputy Menno Zacharias on the issue of public safety. Once these diverse voices have been assembled in a coherent fashion, it's time for a communication strategy. This is simple part. You don't need money for an ad in the Free Press or on CJOB (although on specific big issues you can go this route). Simply send out e-mails to your identified supporters saying "here is the issue, pass along to 5 friends." If this grassroots network is present and strong, progressive candidates will have an easier time with their message and won't have to rely on those annoying robo-calls.
It really feels like all we've been doing is talking amongst ourselves and the public doesn't hear. Unfortunately, I have the sense that this is only going to continue. Progressives in Brandon have far fewer resources at their disposal than they do in Winnipeg, yet managed to win the Mayor's chair and defeat several councillors. We can do the same in Winnipeg.
?? I think you mean 2007.
This questionable strategy was also brought up in the previous thread:
http://www.rabble.ca/babble/prairies/who-running-mayor-winnipeg#comment-...
I don't think emails do it, personally, but I like the rest of your ideas. Start organizing town halls on a bi-yearly or quarterly basis. This would be a good role for the coalition, since it does not seem to endorse any one candidate and does not appear to be under the control yet of any one party. It could serve to unify progressive interests toward a single effective strategy.
Personally, I do think Judy has so far been the best candidate to step forward. Her popularity and experience and ability to engage the public makes her a good face for our interests. Unfortunately, so many others disagree, yet refuse to put forward a suitable alternative. Maybe Winnipeg leftists and progressives need to decide whether they want to win elections or just run in them to "raise issues".
Just wondering if the thread title should be changed, since only the first three posts here really relate to the stated topic and the thread became a general discussion of the campaigns and strategy.
I asked a prominent activist at Judy's party how he felt about the campaign, and he told me we gave it our best shot. Well, if our "best shot" yields these results, we might as well pack it in and give up because the stars were lined up.
Well, now you're being defeatist, which goes against everything you've been posting here. I don't think it really was the best shot, and I don't think the stars were all that well lined up. Some things were missing, as we've already been discussing.
I agree this wasn't our best shot. When Katz first started to poll ahead of Judy after having been tied with her earlier in the month, I didn't want to believe. I told myself that there must be something the polls aren't picking up, the polls would be biased when you consider the source, etc. Turns out my sinking suspicions were correct.True believers were insisting that Judy would win, but anybody outside that camp wasn't so sure. Even on these threads, I felt a general sense that air was coming out of the baloon but that people were silent so as not to expose any weakness. Note how much more active these threads have been in the past 2 days than the past 2 weeks.
We need to do better, on that matter you and I agree, I just don't see any indication that the "left leaders" in Winnipeg understand that.
Exactly. While she was not prepared for the rough-and-tumble world of civic politics, every candidate has unique strengths and weaknesses, so I'm not sure another candidate would have done better. For example, Dan Vandal could have run, but not only has he lost to Katz before, but he and Katz simply do not get along. The campaign could have easily turned into a grudge match, which would not have been to anyone's benefit. Jenny Gerbasi could certainly take on Katz, but would she have been able to appeal to a wide section of voters across the city?
I have to admit, the Crimestopper's ad about someone stealing her platform was quite brilliant.
NDP endorsement process to be reviewed:
What needs to happen is for the NDP to butt out of civic politics entirely. It's quite clear that what happened in Daniel Mac and Elmwood caused many wounds within the party, and those wounds won't heal easily. The rigid partisan alliances in place at the federal and provincial levels don't translate that well. Progressives instead have to organize into loose coalitions at the municipal level, similar to the COPE/NPA alignment in Vancouver. The left-right differences are still there, but the outward manifestation is different.
I agree that the NDP should not be associated with municipal elections, Aristotleded. I think that's a bit of a turn off and people who are interested in left -right dichotomies can figure out for themselves where candidates stand. I only worked on one municipal election where the NDP got involved (not in Winnipeg) and we ran a strong candidate who had been an NDP worker with good credentials in what had been a safe progressive seat where the long-standing incumbant retired. Unfortunately, another strong NDP candidate was running who did not get the party's backing but still had a very solid reputation. They ended up splitting the vote and the guy who won ended up moving on to become a successful and popular Liberal MP and then a Senator.
Beyond the NDP running as a slate, Judy's campaign seemed to lack focus and excitement. I think the water treatment PPP had more traction than she captialized on as did the proposed stadium at U of M. Too many of her positions were similar to what Sam was proposing that it was really hard to see her as a visionary candidate. To her credit, she made Sam Katz actually fight unlike the last election but I think it was hers to win had she done things differently.
Totally agree. And you have to wonder about who her advisors were. It seemed to be a "don't rock the boat" platform, as if they perceived that doing nothing, proposing nothing, like Sam does (doesn't) would keep it uncontroversial and therefore palatable for Winnipeg voters, and she could kind of slide in on her popularity and/or name recognition.
Using stale election buzzwords like "transparency" and "accountability", while perhaps true and valid, nevertheless came out empty-sounding and meaningless for anyone listening, especially when no specifics were provided.
And then leaving things to the NDP get-the-vote-out "machine" in the last few days. Really puzzling. That machine would work a lot better with some excitement to capitalize on.
I'm not at all convinced that's true. Here in Regina, discerning the ideology of most candidates is dodgy at best - particularly since virtually all of them have nothing of substance beyond wanting lower taxes and improved services. (Someday, I want to meet a candidte who calls for higher taxes and poorer services.)
In any event, here in Regina, we end up with hard right councillors where a hard right candidate would have trouble keeping their deposit in any election where party / ideological labels are transparent. To the degree that anyone has tried to address this by endorsing a progressive (and technically non-NDP-partisan) slate, it has been an ill-managed flop.
Very well said. I agree 100%, with the slight caveat that I see Vision Vancouver as a more appropriate example of coalition-building than COPE.
Mind you, Regina seems to be unique in that there are no purely "urban" or "suburban" wards. Urban wards tend to the left, suburban wards tend to the right. Even Saskatoon tends to regularly elect left-leaning councillors, and its ward boundaries are drawn along these lines.
I'm guessing that the Coalition for a Citizen Friendly Regina went the way of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers?
I have no idea how many people here are from Winnipeg; I doubt few beyond who participate in the threads read them. When Rabble first started there were lots of stickers downtown to promote it here but nothing in the last few years. I have seen its name scribbed on a bathroom wall in the downtown library and that is about it. Maybe rabble.ca needs to be promoted more here in Winnipeg again. For the most part, it reads very much Toronto.
As to anyone who says "best shot" I would certainly like to have a more specific definition of what that means. What I see are a lot of people going through the motions for whatever social reason.
Yup. Backroom Old Boys Club wheeling and dealing just isn't cutting it with voters any more. They want something different.
The Coalition for a Citizen Friendly Regina was a complete flop, and the iteration in the last election wasn't any better. The only endorsed candidates who won in either election were those who were acclaimed.
Part of the problem there is that having a committee of the local labour council arbitrarily determine who the designated candidate is in a given ward is scarcely more democratic than what we've got from the other side. The progressive movement is more than labour, and to have labour act alone is worse than stupid. As is watching labour blade one of their own in order to endorse a polarizing blowhard - and both of them challenging the last progressive standing on council.
Then once the candidates have leapt through labour's hoops to be anointed as the designated progressive candidate, the total "support" ended up being a cheque for a few hundred dollars.
No, Aristotle. The CCFR was never half as effective as the Bombers were on Labour Day weekend.
We had similar things happen in Winnipeg, with the NDP endosring municipal candidates. I find it funny that the NDP is considering "what to do" about people who ran for council and schoolboard despite losing the "NDP nomination" (one of whom was a long-time respected councillor in an NDP stronghold, where the NDP-annointed candidate came in third, even behind the Liberals) since the NDP doesn't even have official standing at the municipal level.
We have had a similar issues in Toronto around people being sore losers about not getting an NDP endorsement etc... and so this slection there were no formal NDP endorsements. What i find objectionable are people who bother contesting the informal NDP nomination process and then when they don't win, they go off and run anyways. I think that if you agree to take part in the process, you should agree to abide by the results. So, I say if you want to run for an NDP municipal nomination - you should have to sign an affidavit that you will not run if you lose - otherwise, don't bother running for the nomination at all and just run as an progressive "independent".
How does it compare to running federally or provincially where party affiliations are official? Anecdotally, it seems that people who lose their party nominations deciding to run anyways is much rarer federally and provincially than municipally. So in the cases of people like Chuck Cadman and Bev Desjarlais, did running as independents cost them their memberships? I'm guessing both weren't well-thought-of in their respectvie parties after the fact? (Actually, we know Bev wasn't.)
For one thing - at the municipal level parties don't even officially exist and you are not voting to elect a party which will form a government.
In some cases like Cadman, you have a popular incumbent MP who was seen as having been railroaded out of a nomination. I can't think of any examples of a non-incumbent candidate for nomination running as an independent and getting a significant number of votes.
Something else we should think about is timing of the announcement. If we go back to the Brandon example, Decter Hirst had announced her candidacy close to a year in advance of the election. In Winnipeg, we had no idea at that point, and there was a great deal of hmmming and hawing, maybe this person will run, that person will not, Judy Wasylycia-Leis is rumoured to be seeking a bid, hope she doesn't split the vote with Lillian Thomas, blah blah blah blah. The next general election is scheduled for October 22, 2014. It would probably be a good idea to have a progressive candidate lined up around the fall of 2013 (I thought to myself, but didn't say publicly, that we should have had our candidate lined up no later than fall 2009). Then on October 22 of that year, make a big splash by announcing your candidacy. (On October 27, 2009, the Free Press had a section on the upcoming provincial election, who was in, who was out, etc). That gives you lots of time to build up your support base throughout the city, test a few communication strategies, build a coherent platform, etc. Once you've done that, then as the time draws closer you can ratchet up the campaign, build on that excitement, and win office whether or not Katz decides to run again.
After all, we wouldn't want the electorate deciding things, would we?
I have to admit, the only thing I felt happy about this election was watching Harvey Smith take the NDP machine down a notch.
Funny, that's almost exactly what my Conservative brother said...
Not sure exactly what you mean by saying that.
Seems to me the NDP screwed up and were told so by the electorate. I think that final outcome is the main thing, not the will of those want to see the NDP lose or the conservatives gain.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/ndp-taking-another-look-at-endors...
That said (and I'm speaking in theory because it has been a decade since I last lived in Winnipeg) I can understand some people feeling a bit of pleasure at seeing them lose after trying to remove a long-standing incumbent who evidently still enjoys the support of the people.
I don't have any particular anti-NDP sentiment, but I understand perfectly that some might feel some pleasure at seeing them get their comeuppance. It was not a smart move on their part.
Not just lose, but come in a distant third.