Weekend Warriors Work The Ward

The doorbell rang shortly after one p.m. On a warm, sunny, weekend afternoon I suspected one of two things; either a solicitor for some natural gas conversion scam or a municipal canvasser for the November 13th election.... or, what I most loathe, one of those kids that come around selling chunks of wax they call candles, stale biscuits, tubs of cookie dough and cheesey home decorations. I find it most ironic that their motivational line is that this will somehow keep kids off the streets, yet this does not stop them from ringing my doorbell at 8:30 at night.

It was, to my keen interest, a candidate for council in my ward - or, more precisely, a canvasser of his.

"Good afternoon, sir. My name is Dick and I'm canvassing on behalf of Brett Delmage. He's running for council in this ward."

Being quite politically active in all three levels of politics over the past year with John Baird's federal campaign, Lisa MacLeod's by-election in Nepean-Carleton, Terry Kilrea's aborted bid for Mayor, Dan Cowley's short run for Ward 4 and, now, Larry O'brien's Mayoral run, I was a little surprised to hear that incumbent Rick Chiarelli had an opponent this time around.

But, giving the benefit of the doubt as this could very well have happened while I was taking an afternoon nap, I listened to what Dick had to say.

"He's a fine young chap", he elaborated to exhaustive length. "I just live up the street at 1205."

"I see", was my reply. "Do you have any literature I can read?"

"No" was his response, directing my attention to his name tag that somehow validated his status as canvasser for the candidate.

"Mmm Hmmm!" A little deeper, now. "Does he have a website?"

"Yes", he responded enthusiastically, again pointing to his name tag which only referred to the candidate's name with no url details.

I thanked the man for his time and said that I would "google" his candidate. Looking well into his seventies and braving a feigned expression of understanding, I could tell this gentlemen had no clue regarding the concept of a "google". He merely asserted for a final time that his candidate was a "fine young chap".

As I sat on my front step several minutes later with a cigarette, "googling" Brett Delmage on my blackberry - to little avail, the man himself appeared on my very street.

A quick-thinking Dick spotted me and summoned the candidate over for a quick introduction.

One glance at him and I quickly placed myself in Dick's relative terms of reference, for this "fine young chap" was clearly my age (47) or older. Not exactly a spring chicken.

Not sure if it was an icebreaker or his priority issue, but one of the first things out of his mouth was, "Did you know they changed the name to College Ward?"

"Yes, yes I did." was all I could return. I had expected something meatier from a guy with no lit, a stealth website and a sole canvasser enraptured with the luster and salience of a name tag, if he was to, at all, capture my interest.

But, then, I'm in communications.

So many campaigns, especially at the local level, miss the mark despite their altruistic intentions and democratic valor. Even big campaigns with big money fail in making the big first, last and lasting impressions.

But I gave Mr. Delmage a generous opportunity to discuss the issues. I found him to generally be in the same ballpark of sanity as Larry O'Brien, although Delmage will only hold tax increases to the rate of inflation. He also had some interesting thoughts on waste management and responsible spending. It wasn't enough to secure a vote, but it was worth giving the benefit of consideration.

I have since learned of another filing in my ward, presumably at deadline as was Delmage. Laura Lee DOUPE is all we know. If Brett Delmage was below the radar, this bird's off the charts with absolutely no profile available.

Still, the incumbent Rick Chiarelli has had to step up to real campaign gear now. And I say "good", even for the simple benefit of the voter having a democratic choice.

Rick has been a much different Chiarelli this past term as opposed to the previous and, without question, vastly different from Mayor Bob. With the appetite for change as high as it is, there'll be the obvious tendency to blur the two Chiarelli's. He'll have his work cut out for him, if only for that reason.

With a little over a month to go, the campaign takes on all the compression and urgency of a federal or provincial election.

It's showtime. It's "go" time. Run Ricky Run!!