First, a quick note on the midterms: 17 out of the last 20 midterms have resulted in a loss for the President's party, and this midterm makes it 18 out of 21. Though losses in the House were huge, I still see it as vastly preferable to 1994 where House losses were not so great but the GOP took the majority in the Senate, leaving the President at the whim of both houses. So it could be worse, and since presidential elections garner a lot more attention (which means a larger turnout among younger voters), 2012 will certainly be different. But now to the subject of this diary entry:
You never feel so fired up about an election as the week after a loss. The result of an election brings with it the 20/20 hindsight about which candidates should have been given the most support, and where one's resources should have been allocated. The time after an election loss brings with it a lot of enthusiasm, but lacks an outlet where it can be channeled. But wait a second, maybe there is a good place for it to be channeled. And a good example of this is found in the Canadian city where I'm from, Calgary. Because last month in Calgary...
...there was a municipal election. Municipal elections are usually quite dull matters, getting little national media attention and often simply result in the present mayor being elected again. This time around however, we ended up with a pretty interesting race, and you can read about it here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Basically the history of mayors in Calgary went like this: from 1989 Calgary had a soft-spoken popular mayor named Al Duerr, and after a number of terms he decided not to run again, and an alderman named Dave Bronconnier became mayor in 2001, who then won a number of terms himself and decided not to run again. Though Bronconnier was certainly not the worst mayor a city could have, municipal politics was now becoming quite dull and turnout plummeted to a record low in Western Canada of 18% during the election in 2004, and 2007 was also quite low at 33%. The 2010 election was set to be a repeat of these recent elections with a candidate named Ric McIver as the frontrunner, who was a long-time alderman and one who had support of the federal Conservatives as well. Calgary was getting ready to elect a pretty blah mayor.
So what happened? Well, it turned out to be the most exciting mayoral race in the country in the past decade or two. A local well-known figure named Naheed Nenshi decided to enter the race as an underdog, and as a policy wonk he put out the most detailed policy platform of all the candidates. He grew up in the poorer east side of the city and spent a lot of the race talking about issues that people here like - fighting against suburban sprawl with better public transit, creating more compact and livable communities within the city, was not afraid to stand up to the police department in telling them where the city's budget was being wasted on their side, that sort of thing. His supporters were fired up, and he went from 8% support in the beginning to 40% by election day, and that divided among the other candidates gave him the largest share of the vote. Here he is a bit before election day:
And for a non-embeddable image of the new mayor, see here.
(and by the way, can we get imgur.com added as an approved image hosting account? 1.8 billion views per month is big enough, no?)
The day after the election the news was ablaze with news of "Canada's first Muslim mayor". Ah, that's right - he's a Muslim. It never came up during the election but once the national media got a hold of the story that's all they talked about for about a week. A very good writeup of why he won can be seen here, and now thanks to its new and exciting (but not at all lacking in substance) mayor, Calgary is the envy of the country. In comparison, Toronto's new mayor is...this guy, Rob Ford. From the article:
Anyway, the next day CBC Radio's As It Happens called Ford on his cellphone for a prearranged interview. Ford, however, was busy coaching football. CBC host Carol Off asked questions but Ford's attention was elsewhere. He barked loudly at his players, seemingly oblivious to the fact he was on a national radio program.
What, Off asked, drew so much support to the Rob Ford campaign?
"It's just people are sick and tired of the wasteful spending." Lacking anything else to say, Ford repeated himself: "People are sick and tired of wasteful spending, that's the bottom line. That's what it comes down to." Then he angrily bellowed at one of his players: "Go out and get changed! Don't worry about the water right now!"
The on-air buffoonery ended minutes later when Ford decided he was done indulging the Ceeb and hung up. "I gotta let you go here . . . . Really nice talking to you. All the best. Bye-bye." Click.
Call me naive, but for this listener, the interview was an eye-opener. I'd thought so-called progressive Torontonians had been exaggerating about Ford in recent months.
I knew he was provocative and somewhat ignorant -- he famously said that when cyclists get mowed over on city streets, "it's their own fault" for riding on the road in the first place -- but he can't be that bad, I thought.
I was wrong. He is that bad...Not that Naheed Nenshi, Calgary's new mayor, is divine. (Although -- have you heard?! -- he is a religious guy, an Ismaili Muslim, a fact the Toronto-based national media loved to point out with patronizing astonishment.) Nenshi's a smart, articulate guy who landed an incredibly tough job -- but at this point his performance remains a question mark. He may be a fine mayor for the city or he may not be.
So what does this have to do with American politics? Well, next year besides a few gubernatorial and senate election races there are a lot of municipal elections as well:
Nationwide, there are cities, counties, school boards, special districts and others that will elect members in 2011. Of those, some of the most high-profile include mayoral elections in Baltimore; Memphis; Chicago; Dallas; Houston; Indianapolis; Jacksonville, Florida; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; San Francisco; Wasilla, Alaska, whose mayor's office was once filled by Sarah Palin; Salt Lake City; and Phoenix.
A quick calculation shows that these races account for some 30-50 million people depending on how you count, and for all we know there is (or will be) another candidate or two or three out there that deserve a fired up group of supporters, as they will start at just 8% in the polls but will be able to make it if they are given the support they need. And after becoming mayor, the next step can easily be Lieutenant-Governor or Governor, and after that who knows...
So my proposal is this: though national issues will and should receive the most coverage, some brainstorming over the next month or two may lead to some impressive potential candidates outside of the national sphere, whether in statewide or municipal elections. As a non-American this is now well outside my area of specialty, but hopefully my home town's example will serve as an instance where one of the dullest elections turned out to be one of the most exciting.
I think it's of crucial importance that Chicago not be the only city that receives national attention in 2011. Hopefully Wasilla will not receive undue attention either while worthy candidates for cities that deserve national attention go unnoticed.
So how would this go about? A weekly or biweekly feature? Let's discuss the best way to shine light on races that deserve attention and could give us (or rather, you) a chance to change the country for the better even during a year that otherwise might be spent just griping about what happened in November.
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Where to find me when I'm not on Daily Kos: http://www.pagef30.com