Are the Election Campaign Gloves Finally Off

Perhaps the quiet campaign is going to get a bit more interesting over the next 2 weeks. Have we gone through the "Phony War" period and now the direct attacks will start? Or rather, to be less negative and more politically correct, candidates will point out the flaws in the record of the incumbents.

I am aware who David Wonham's campaign manager is based on some research I did. Roseann Danese did a description of him in her Star Blog. I expect that the David's campaign will be more "guerilla warfare" than the usual mayoral type campaigning, obviously because Wonham started so late. Depending on what the campaign manager can do (and campaign money is the key factor whether he can do much), Eddie should be very, very afraid over the 12 days. I wonder if this is why Eddie finally "came out!" on his Website. I expect that Eddie takes him and his challengers seriously because NO mayoral debate has been set up as far as I know (except perhaps one on CBC TV). He knows that his record of non-achievement makes him very vulnerable to attack.

The Ward with the most fun so far is Ward 4 with the charges made against Councillor Lewenza Jr. The first Star headline was "Marra accuses Lewenza Jr. of intimidating his supporters." Then the next was "CUPE's stance angers Lewenza: Union splits endorsement."

These actions by Ken seem to be a far cry from his earlier, more gentlemanly comment "Bill is a good person, David is a good person; unfortunately one of the three of us is going down," but more in keeping with his remark "when asked, Lewenza Jr. immediately shot into offensive mode, pointing out that Marra previously said he needed a few weeks to decide whether to run for mayor or council. That was about one month ago. "Just let him mire in indecisiveness," Lewenza Jr. snapped."

I wonder if Ken Jr. has to worry. Will Gord Henderson write a nice column a few days before the eelction about him just as he did when Ken Jr. made his infamous anti-Labour Council diatribe and slamming as well, his opponent, the potential Leader of the Opposition to Eddie?

Ward 2 is getting warmer with the growing battle between candidate Chris Schnurr and Councillor Caroline Postma. I saw the Cogeco speech that Chris gave and he talked about the clean-up that he and his group did around the Boundless Playground removing drug needles and other drug paraphernalia. That is a direct challenge to what helped get Caroline elected, Ward clean-ups.

In the Star the other day, we again saw their differences on Council secrecy. Postma claims that personnel and legal matters meant "To me, we've done nothing wrong because these are issues we've had to deal with."

The Star reported that "Chris Schnurr has made [Council secrecy] one of his main election issues. He said the city of Victoria was forced to release parts of an agreement with a contractor hired to build a new arena after the province's information and privacy officer got involved. "If you're hiding it from the public, how can the public make an informed decision about whether or not they should support this?"

As for the arena, Schnurr said "This is a perfect example on a variety of files the city is dragging its feet on... The arena issue has been going on for more than 20 years. But the Town of Tecumseh welcomed them with open arms." All Postma could say was "I'm disappointed and quite frankly a little shocked," she said. "To play off two municipalities is wrong. I don't like to use the term bad faith. But sitting at a table with me and answering my questions about a proposal that seemed like a good idea for Windsor - - while having started negotiations with another municipality two months earlier -- is outrageous. I feel right now almost like I have been stabbed in the back." It would seem that the Mayor did not share the 7/11 letter with her or she would have known the facts! If he did, then her protestations were phony.

Oh, as for Dan Petoran, his website went from "Coming soon" to "The page cannot be displayed" to finally going live! A candidate of action I see whose website is still not complete.

When Schnurr asks Postma why the seniors in Huron Lodge that she was so concerned about cannot have their $1,000 of Tylenol tablets since we have so much money available for a $70-75M or more arena that won't increase our taxes ("Read my lips. No Arena taxes"), then we will know there is a war going on in that Ward!

I have heard that Tony Blak is causing real problems for the two incumbents in Ward 3 by his attacks at public sessions on their "fiscal responsibility." I spent 3 hours talking with Tony recently. It's a shame that he is not better known since I think he could make a great Councillor! He might gain a lot of votes this time at the expense of the 2 incumbents but can he beat one of them is the question.

But where the real battle is starting is in Ward 1. That's always the toughest Ward with the most Councillor changes. Don't tell me that Tom Lynd didn't get a big boost-up in the Star "secrecy" story. Frankly, that was a direct hit at Councillor STOPDRTP who was so vocal about "betrayals" at Council in camera session on DRTP but who has been party to many hour of secret border discussions as an elected official. Here is what Tom said:

• "I think that's deplorable," said Ward 1 candidate Tom Lynd. "To me, in my opinion, that's really high."
  
  Lynd should know. He was city clerk for 15 years and worked at city hall for 30. He was secretary of a committee in the late 1970s that developed one of the first Freedom of Information bylaws in the province, later used as a provincial model by the Bob Rae government.
  
  "We were the model then and we seem to be just the opposite now."

But if you want to see a war, a real war, then check out Al Teshuba's Blogsite and his BLOG www.alteshuba.com Now I happen to think that Al, and others, are misguided on tunnel advocacy as I have written. They are playing to the masses without really thinking about the issue. They seem to think that Windsor deserves a tunnel because Eddie talks "quality of life" or Hurst runs nice "Powerpoint" presentations so he can get CP's and Borealis' money back. Al and the others just don't listen to the decision-makers.

But that's ok..let Al be passionate about the issue and try to achieve it. After all, he spent HIS money on the conference earlier this year on tunnelling. It is something no one else has done.

However his latest BLOG "Will Ward #1 Vote for Border/Infrastructure Invisibility & Indecisiveness?" drops the gloves. Using the border as his issue, and all the time he has spent on it, he goes after one candidate for his seeming lack of interest on the border and his alleged flipflopping. For Councillor STOPDRTP, he asks where he has been on the BIG issue that got him elected and won him the most votes last time of all of the Councillors. He talks about "invisible" candidates.

I'll give him credit for one great line and for making the Ward 1 race more interesting:

• "Hiring a Toronto lawyer to mostly represent "the Corporation of the City of Windsor’s interest" on this file, instead of elected officials representing the "People of the City of Windsor", is not a very productive nor efficient approach."

UPDATE:

The smears are on too. I received an email yesterday that is about the dirtiest piece of "campaign literature" I have ever seen trying to destroy one of the candidates in Ward 1! Who its author is, I do not know. The copy I was sent came from a G-Mail account which is anonymous! It talks about something that happened about 15 years ago. But then again, there was the unsubstantiated gossip that circulated door-to-door that helped destroy another candidate in Ward 1 last time.

I believe that it was sent to some of the media at least (and who knows how many others) and timed beautifully: the day before the Star Ward 1 candidate profiles were to be published!

Geeeeez, this is politics at the Municipal level for heaven's sake. Who is that desperate to do this? Is it just Ward 1 that is this dirty or I wonder if there is the equivalent in other Wards as well and I have just not seen or heard about it yet.