There are going to be some very interesting ward races on Wednesday. There are, for instance, the two rematches: Gray trying to retake Ward 5 from Findura and Flegel trying to knock Szarka off his perch in Ward 10. And I have to admit I’ve no idea who’s going to be the Rocky and who the Apollo Creed in either of the those contests. And to be honest I’m actually more interested to find out if a Clubber Lang will emerge in those wards four years from now. Because really, a little Mr T would be great for Regina’s self esteem, don’t you think?
Or, wait. Aren’t we just coming off 12 years of a little Mr T?
Maybe this analogy has flown off the rails.
Anyway, what this post was supposed to be about is the unpredictable way votes could split in Ward 3. Seven candidates, six of whom seem to be reading from the same playbook: be nice, be progressive, be a bit of a renegade but not so much the renegade that people stop taking you seriously. (The seventh candidate, Justin Slobodan, seems to be running some kind of stealth campaign.)
From what I’ve seen, Susan Birley and Shawn Fraser have the most lawn signs out in the community. But Don Young and Shirley Dixon have both run in the ward before and built up a lot of support and name recognition. And Eric Anderson and Janice Muir both performed extremely well in the forum.
Six candidates who all seem like the right kind of candidate for the ward. The vote might get diced up pretty fine.
As evidence of how fractured things are here, election day is only two days off but I know a lot of Ward 3 residents who are still undecided. Or decided but troubled by the decision they’ve made. They want more information but are running out of time.
Well, as it happens, I recorded the Ward 3 candidates’ forum at the Cathedral Neighbourhood Centre. And, to help you undecided voters out — or maybe to muddle your thinking even worse — I’ve uploaded it to prairie dog’s server so those of you who missed it can have a listen.
The file’s huge so I won’t be streaming it.
Download the Cathedral Ward 3 Candidate Forum. (51.9MB mp3)
Follow all of our online election coverage — including interviews, analysis and podcasts — on our Regina City Election 2012 page. And you can read about everyone running in this election on our Candidate Profiles page.