Victory Lap! The Third Man Won!

There are times when I would prefer to be proven wrong, but not this time.  Your favourite freelance writer in city affairs said this on May 15th about the possibility of Larry DiIanni entering the race:

...it could be a good opportunity for a wild card candidate to step into the scene and pull votes away from the both of them.

Votes were certainly pulled from the incumbent Eisenberger, who finished 3rd with 26% of the vote, while Larry DiIanni was 2nd with 28%.  Walking away with 37% of the vote is not the strongest mandate, but considering the quality of the candidates in the race, it will do.  So how did it happen?

Bratina had support from the rural areas along with the elder Hamiltonians.  He got support from disaffected supporters from both the Eisenberger and DiIanni camps.  From that point, he sailed away.

So what does this mean for the stadium?  The word is out that Confederation Park is coming back to the table.  We will have to see if that's the case.

So what can expect to happen as we head to the new year?  All that I hope is that Merulla and Bratina do not end up in a duelling e-mail game as they have recently done twice.  And will things get any better at City Hall?  That's too soon to say.  That would depend on the behaviour before the new session begins.

Did the right guys get in?  Perhaps.  Both Eisenberger and DiIanni were damaged goods and so the votes came as expected.  Unfortunately, no mayoralty challenger could get past Michael Baldassaro who got the fourth most votes.  While Edward Graydon has no regrets with the campaign he ran, bumps, bruises and all, perhaps Mr. Butani could let us know of his reaction to the results.

And now the question that really needed to be asked:  Was Eisenberger's endorsement from the Spec the kiss of death?  Not necessarily.  The early polling indicated intent and people had their minds made up before the vote anyway.

So in the end, things went as expected, but only where the mayoralty was concerned.  Challengers for the Ward Councillor seats had a tough time making any head way.  It did become the incumbents advatage where there were many horses in the race, especially Ward 3 and Ward 6, where Bernie Morelli and Tom Jackson won in their repective wards.  But things didn't work out for both Juan Pablo Bustamante and Bernard Josipovic, who couldn't even split their votes with Maria Pearson.  Not really a surprise, considering the ward they lived in.  The Fruitland vote just didn't come through for the two challengers.

So all in all, some laughed, some cried and hopefully we all won...

CHCH is back...

...but could you please hire people that know how to spell???

So here I am watching the news at 11pm last night and what do I see?  I am watching a report on a cholera outbreak in Haiti and how things are going to contain this.  So what's the problem?

How about spelling?  Right there on the character generator, it says "CHORELA" and not "CHOLERA"!

It's great that the folks at Channel Zero have picked up this wonderful and unique television station that is CHCH.  But is it too much to ask you people to ensure that you remove some of the CanWest deadwood still lying around?

The Ward 2 Race is getting nasty!

...and guess who was in the crossfire.  It was none other than regular R4M reader, Edward Graydon.

That is the only possible explanation for what happened that Monday night when he was attacked by a volunteer apparently working for Shane Coleman, over of all things the guy riding his bike on a sidewalk in the dark without a headlight.  All this happened before the Mayoral debate which took place in the North End.

Undaunted, he showed up for the debate and it is now up to the voters to decide.

While such occurances are thankfully rarities, we all know how tempers flare when passion and exuberance can be easily mistaken for beligerance.  And with a race with 20 candidates, it's a crowded house there and a decisive victory is all but assured.  And that's why it is important for one of those candidates to stand out in that crowd, otherwise we will have a very messy election in Ward 2.  One thing is for sure.  The trash talking between Matt Jelly and James Novak was completely uncalled for and it's good that they mutually made amends.  Now the question will be how the voters will look at that incident.

It's crunch time and with less than a week to go, it's starting to look like Bob Bratina, with the support of the elderly and rural communities, is poised to become the next mayor of Hamilton.  But like they say in the NFL, you can predict the outcome of the game before it's played, but the win isn't awarded until the game is over.

I wish all the candidates the best of luck in the election and appreciation for having participated in the democratic process.  It's not necessarily rewarding to have lost, but having fought the good fight, you are all to be saluted!

In retrospect, I have no regrets for having backed out of this election, but I will be watching Wards 6 and 7, along with the next mayor and if I am not happy with what I have seen, I will run in 2014 most likely for councillor.  And being close to Upper Gage, I will seriously consider either ward, depending on who I want to challenge the most.

Another fine mess brought to you by the Conservative Party of Canada!

As our city finally agrees on the stadium location and now they have a couple of months to solidify the funding needed to purchase the land from CP and build the stadium there, we can move on to bigger things, like national politics...

Unless you've been under a rock over the last 48 hours, you know that the UN for the first time ever has denied Canada a seat at the Security Council table when it was on the ballot.  Every time our country has appeared on the ballot, our country has been elected until now.  So how serious is this?  Very.

What was even more puzzling was watching Harper having to beg and plead for a place at the security council.  I don't recall there ever being a time when a PM has ever done so.  To stand there and remind the UN of Canada's contributions, none of which his government has provided, was disingenuous and rightfully rebuked.

And I for one don't really like the idea of the Conservatives spreading their pogrom on the world, as they have done in Canada.  This is not the same Canada that stood under the watch of all our great prime ministers since William Lyon Mackenzie King.  This is a more hated country and with plenty good reason.  The people in charge have alienated us from the world and our reputation continues to slide every single day this government sits.  The Conservatives only want impose their ideology on the world, with a simplistic view that makes us less worldly than we once were.

There was a time when being a Canadian meant being a citizen of the world, but Conservative government with its continuous stoking of nationalism and endless echoing of jingoist views have made us a little more alien to the world.  It's as if they don't recognize us anymore.  We are now perceived to be a different country altogether because of actions taken by the Conservative government. 

There's something about changing a country that once fought to keep the peace and acted as an honest broker internationally, to a militarist country led by a confirmed chickenhawk with delusional visions of an old Christian-dominated, Islamophobic world order.  Getting in late in the game, cutting aid to African countries, criticizing the UN as a corrupt organization and taking more of an isolationist approach for the country doesn't help sell yourself either.  This debacle is owned by Harper's Conservatives, who epically failed to pin their loss on oppostion leader Michael Ignatieff, who rightfully observed that we really didn't deserve the non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council.

And perhaps all this was a set-up for something else.  After all, they need to score some cheap points as another apparent reason to deny Mr. Ignatieff a mandate to govern.  But let's just ignore Mr. Harper's own tinkering with a sitting government when he expressed his disappointment that Canada rightfully refused to participate in Bush's Iraq war to remove a Republican operative and bring chaos to the Middle East for years to come.  He expressed his disappointment in the Wall Street Journal.  So as the pot calls the kettle black, we are caught in the crossfire as usual, wondering whether or not we will return to the UN Security Council.

Of course we will be back at the table, but not with our current government holding the reins.  The time for reckoning is coming.  Let's hope it will be sooner rather than later.