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The Battle for Quadra — Page 3
O“So in this by-election, if you believe that
Stephen Harper is going in the right direction, if you
are with his priorities, then you can vote for either
my Conservative or my Liberal opponent.” This
got a big laugh—applause, hooting, whistling.
Unfortunately for her, the voters of Quadra followed
her suggestion, dropping NDP support from David Askew’s
2006 showing of 16 percent to her 14.4. Her Elect Rebecca
Coad Facebook group closed with the voting stations,
but at its height it boasted 316 members. Recent comment:
“Dude, you have 10 times as many FB supporters
as Joyce Murray!” But Murray got a lot more votes.
As the Green party picks off votes from the NDP’s
left flank and the Liberals encroach on the right, the
Quadra by-election did little to refute the notion that
the federal NDP is wandering in the wilderness.
Vote 2.0
“Thanks, guys, for putting this on.” In
his gosh-gee sincerity, UBC archaeology grad and Green
party candidate Dan Grice came across as committed,
passionate, and a tad naïve. Speaking from neither
notes (as Murray did) nor memory (as Coad, a theatre
grad, did), he addressed the seniors who’d filled
a Dunbar church hall as “guys” four times
in five minutes. Love him or loathe him, Grice seemed
fully himself. “I really like meeting people,”
he said by way of introduction. “But I find just
being out there on the streets is better. I like that
better than knocking on doors some nights because I’m
not disturbing you during dinner.”
As Grice spoke (“We need some passion in politics;
we need some excitement”), I recalled a 24 Hours
column in which Bill Tieleman (a long-time NDP supporter
and an opponent of Grice’s on electoral reform)
claimed that party leader Elizabeth May had written
every Quadra Green party member, asking them not to
nominate Grice: “A vote for None of the Above
or a vote to re-open the nomination process would be
appreciated.” But Grice, a self-described “new-media
consultant,” prevailed and was unfailingly positive:
“I’m really reaching out to you guys to
give us a chance.”
Unlike Coad, he substantially bettered the showing of
his predecessor, earning 13.5 percent of the vote compared
to Ben West’s five percent in 2006. “Dan
and the team ran an excellent campaign,” the federal
Green party declared after election day. “The
team focused on canvassing, the virtual phone bank and
in the last few days main streeting.” And Grice
best understood how the much-vaunted Web 2.0 could increase
his traction. While the other candidates used Facebook
groups, blogs, and party pages cautiously, Grice threw
it all up on Elect Dan Grice: squabbles (including one
with Tieleman), scores for his IQ (143) and Traveler
IQ (average at 93), even goofy Halloween pictures.
This is the opposite of old-time spin doctoring, though
perhaps ahead of the curve for voting blocs like the
Dunbar Residents Association. It is, as the Greens like
to say, a different brand of politics. Yes, there were
unnervingly unvetted comments on Grice’s Facebook
page, but his open-mindedness and genial embrace of
community partly explained the Georgia Straight’s
endorsement (“A vote for Grice will reward a young
man who has worked extremely hard and sacrificed making
money because he wants to save the planet”)—and
the fact that he nearly trebled the support given to
his 2006 counterpart. The next election will be about
many things; one of them, the Quadra by-election suggests,
will be the effective use of new media.
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