Sunday, November 21, 2010

2011 Municipal Elections

(added on November 19th 2011 - on the right hand side of the page you will see links to pages with all the information you are seeking on the candidates running)

Anyone interested in getting elected to a local council in this region needs to start now building a team and plan how to get elected.

Non-incumbents need to be active long before the incumbents officially announce they are running for election.   If you wait till when the sitting councilors announce it is like having to run a marathon when the sitting councilors are running a 10K.

If you want to get elected in Victoria or Saanich and need to defeat an incumbent, you should be aiming to have a campaign manager, a volunteer manager and a fundraiser in place before April 1st.   You also want to have $30,000 to $40,000 in the bank before labour day and a list of 200 volunteers.

For signs to have an impact in an election, you need about 1000 on private lawns.   This many signs will cost $4000 and will need to be ordered long before the election.

You also need to personally shake a lot of hands, a huge number of hands.  It may seem daunting to try and meet 10,000, but it makes a difference and is one of the few tools at your disposal to make a difference.

Running for council in this region is a harder task than running to be MLA or MP.  Even vacant seats on councils are hard to win and will tend to be won by the best know name on the ballot.

Barry Hobbis rare one of the most professional campaigns I have seen for council, but he lost.   He needed more volunteers and more money.  Mat Wright deserves a lot of credit for running a strong campaign, but still they fell short, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.   In politics no one cares about anyone other than the person that won.

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