Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Calgary Votes

And vote they did. With nearly twice as many voters casting ballots as in 2004, there were some very encouraging results from the municipal election last night. Brian Pincott, the new ward 11 alderman, will be a breath of fresh air on council. Three incumbent aldermen went down in defeat - a truly shocking result for an establishment city. Council will be far better off with Joe Connolly than Craig Burrows and I'm hopeful George Chahal can sneak out a recount victory in ward 3.

As for the Mayor's race, I was hoping for a slightly higher total for Alnoor, but I'm fairly happy with the results - 17% of the vote makes it the top challenge of an incumbent mayor in 27 years. More importantly, his presence in the race got people (if not the media) talking about issues, boosted voter turn-out, and gave Calgary a real race. Given Calgary's historical voting trends, Bronconnier's 61% of the vote is a real slap in the face and it will hopefully send a message that changes need to be made. I think he'll take the message to heart and, given his political skills, I expect him to do a good job over the next three years.

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posted by calgarygrit at 12:24 p.m.

10 Comments:

  • Being a Liberal in Calgary you should be accustomed to election losses by now.

    ;-)

    By Blogger Bailey, at 1:55 p.m.  

  • "Top Ten Interesting Ideas From Calgary's 2007 Municipal Election"

    Check it out!
    here

    http://vollman.blogspot.com/2007/10/top-ten-interesting-ideas-from-calgarys.html

    By Blogger Robert Vollman, at 2:18 p.m.  

  • bailey; I've also got the highly succesful Kennedy, Manley, and Rock leadership campaigns under my belt too...

    By Blogger calgarygrit, at 2:32 p.m.  

  • What's up with the G&M headline this morning...

    Municiple Elections Draw Low Turn Out in Alberta

    DAWN WALTON

    "Results slowly trickled in from the Calgary races, but preliminary results showed Mr. Bronconnier way out ahead with 63 per cent of the vote. Alnoor Kassam was his closest competitor with 16 per cent. By 4 p.m., just 13 per cent of the city's 639,834 eligible voters turned out to cast ballots, down from the 20 per cent who voted in 2004.

    http://tinyurl.com/2vynss

    Talk about lazy reporting.

    By Blogger Ian, at 2:42 p.m.  

  • Grit,

    I can't find the numbers but remember that the 2001 plurality for Bronco was less than 4500 votes. I think he only got 28% and Longstaff, Magnus, Clark were all close behind. So Alnoor claiming a record and you crediting him seems a bit bogus.

    By Blogger Bob McInnis, at 3:26 p.m.  

  • Alnoor can play the race card next time around......

    By Blogger Unknown, at 3:29 p.m.  

  • So Alnoor claiming a record and you crediting him seems a bit bogus.

    To Bob - Bronconnier was NOT an incumbent in that election. Al Duer was, and he was not seeking re-election. So, what CG said ("17% of the vote makes it the top challenge of an incumbent mayor") is quite accurate.

    By Blogger Brian in Calgary, at 3:45 p.m.  

  • my reaction to bronco losing a bit of support in the election down to 61%... that is like Heffner finding out that a couple of supermodels left his Playboy mansion...yeah, he'll really notice the difference and will change. sure.

    By Blogger kenlister1, at 12:18 a.m.  

  • Calgary elected a much better team on Monday than those losers in Edmonton did. I'd be happy to move back to Calgary under this crew.

    Even though I was rooting for Stevenson, your buddy Chahal is also a real class act. It takes a lot of personal fortitude to accept such a close defeat, rather than drag a full-on recount out for weeks.

    By Blogger BR, at 2:09 p.m.  

  • They are very convincing and will definitely work. Thanks for the post.
    playboymansion tickets

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:24 a.m.  

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