Nenshi for 3rd term

The Calgary civic election has come and gone and it's business as usual. Every incumbent councillor is back, including Johnny Jew. The race to watch, however, the one that got a voter turnout to a size we haven't seen in 30 years, that was the mayoral race. If you trusted the media leading up to the final week, you thought Bill Smith had a comfortable lead. But the media was duped. How much of that was intentional to shape the election, we'll never know, but it was fishy to me. The race in the end wasn't close. Or rather, it was close in that the margin of separation wasn't much. 51% for Nenshi, about 44% for Bill Smith. The interesting piece to the entire race was how hard conservatives worked to get their man in. It didn't matter Smith had zero platform. They were basing the entire race on character assassinations. A lot of people don't like Nenshi. The arrogance argument came up many times. Apparently being arrogant to the developers or even the Calgary Flames is bad for citizens. Which it's not. Which brings up another point, how much pie is on the face of the Calgary Flames. They've tainted their image in the eyes of many Calgarians because they tried very hard to meddle in the election get the outcome they wanted. They want a new building, they want it for free on the backs of taxpayers, and Calgarians showed up to say 'no'. Good job Calgary. I hope the conservative vote learned something.....a solid candidate with a smart platform would've won. The ad hominem attacks a la Republican style, didn't work here.