I drove through the ridings of Calgary Egmont and Calgary Fish Creek this morning, and the "sign poll" was rather interesting.
Calgary Egmont is a riding which is going to be interesting on Monday night. It has an unusual number of candidates running in it - a total of six from various parties.
The real race here is between Jonathan Denis and Cathie Williams, with Craig Chandler doing his best to play spoiler - hoping to at the very least split the PC vote. It's obvious that Chandler's been running hard, and he certainly has a lot of lawn signs out there - if that translates into actual votes, Denis is in serious trouble, as it looks distinctly like Chandler may have taken quite a few of the PC votes away. (I'm sorry to say that I didn't see enough NDP or Green Party signs to suggest they are even factors in the vote this time around)
Of course, given that it's probably less than 10% of the homes that have signs in front of them, the undecided vote (estimated to be over 25% of voters still) is going to decide just what form change takes. Personally, my preference would be Cathie Williams in this race. Her leadership on the Calgary Catholic School Board was impressive, and she strikes me as being capable of being an even-handed, rational MLA.
Denis represents the status quo, and he seems to be a weak candidate in this race, with the PC party's organization having been well shook up by Chandler's machinations last year.
As for Chandler, he's demonstrated repeatedly by his actions that he represents nobody except himself. If you see things his way, great. If you dare differ with the man, don't expect to get much traction. His claims of "unifying" people are highly suspect when you recognize how quickly he switches his tune. Last fall, he was asking citizens to vote PC in the coming election; today, he's telling us to vote for him as an independent candidate? His past actions on a variety of fronts leaves me wondering just how well he's going to represent anyone other than himself.
Calgary Fish Creek is shaping up to be much more intriguing than I had expected. From the amount of signs on people's lawns, Heather Forsyth could be in serious trouble. Laura Shutiak has obviously been running a very aggressive campaign, and people are hearing it.
I personally lost a great deal of respect for Ms. Forsyth when I got her response to this letter I sent her - which more or less blew my concerns off as she had already decided to vote for Morton's bill to enshrine bigotry. Her response was essentially "piss off, I've already decided", instead of actually engaging the issues I raised about the legislation.
Sign wise, I'd say that Shutiak outnumbers Forsyth quite significantly, BUT, the number of signs overall is quite small - probably around 5% of homes at most. To me this suggests that there is a huge undecided vote in the area, and possibly a great deal of apathy as well.
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8 comments:
During this campaign Shutiak has definitely been a very hard worker. She had a very organized campaign team and obviously has a lot more "fire in her belly" than Heather who seems to be coasting.
I know that you live in the Fish Creek riding - so let me pose a question to you Grog: has the Forsythe team bothered to contact you in any fashion? (Telephone, door knocking, or even through Canada Post?). How about Shutiak's team?
I think you make a very good point about the letter you wrote to Forsythe. She claims (according to the only election materials I could locate on the web for her - on the official PC Alberta party website) that
"As your representative in the provincial government, it is important to me that I understand your concerns, so that I can represent them in Edmonton. I think we are often so busy telling people what we are going to achieve, we forget to ask what you want us to accomplish."
and
"I want to continue to represent you and be your voice for your issues. I ask once again for your support."
Hmmm... Really? You seem to be rather busy TELLING people and supporting your OWN agenda rather than being the voice of those very constituents who elected you in the first place.
Here's hoping that we see a refreshing change of government in Calgary South... a Liberal voice.
Aside from Dead Stelmach's "Change that works for Albertans", I've heard precious little out of Forsyth's campaign. (A bunch of big boulevard signs on public land, but few signs on private spaces)
I think Denis is a really strong candidate actually. He knocked on my door about 6 months ago and seems to still be going. It will be nice to have him as an MLA coming from the "new generation" instead of simply being the status quo that some of the other candidates represent.
I think J. Denis is a good man, and in the long run a good candidate.
However, the noise around the nomination cycle this time around leaves him and the PC's in Egmont somewhat weakened.
Based on my 'straw poll' of signage, it certainly does appear to me that his campaign has suffered somewhat as a result of the disruptions this past fall.
Seems to me you're right about Chandler - out for himself. I think most of his support is going to take off the fringe Wild Alliance.
This riding has been PC since 1971. Last time Herard (the other Denis) had over 50%. The Liberals typically have a constituency of 20%. For Williams to win, she'd need to get at least another 15% which I don't see happening.
There will be a bit of a loss from that but I predict Denis 43%, Williams 25%, Chandler and Wild Alliance 7% each. What's your prediction?
Based on my very unscientific sign polling, I'm going to call it a bit differently:
32% Cathie Williams
30% Jonathan Denis
15% Craig Chandler
5% Jason Nishiyama
5% Wildrose (can't remember the candidate's name)
Turns out Denis was a far stronger candidate than you thought.
Denis did far better than expected - but then PC candidates did far better than I think they deserved.
When you work out the numbers, it appears that the government was decided by just over 20% of the eligible voters in the province (If 41% voted, and the PCs took home 52%...)
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