Winners and losers from the NPA mayoral contest

by Charlie Smith on June 9th, 2008 at 9:13 AM

Winners:

1. Peter Ladner, for obvious reasons. He pulled off what some are calling a surprising upset, even though this was predicted on this blog last week.

2. NPA park commissioners Ian Robertson and Heather Holden, who supported Ladner despite the tidal wave of caucus support for Sullivan. If either decides to run for city council, they will no doubt receive plum positions at the GVRD if they're elected and Ladner is elected.

3. Federal Liberals, who will could end up with a big-city mayor who is far more critical of Prime Minister Stephen Harper than Sam Sullivan ever was. This could help the Liberals nationally and in some B.C. ridings.

4. Directors of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association and the Vancouver Board of Trade, who have never been completely comfortable with Sullivan's degree of compassion for drug addicts, squeegie kids, and other down-and-outers.

5. Premier Gordon Campbell, who will have a friendly supporter who can talk about sustainability leading the NPA. Campbell's election chances in 2009 hinge on him wooing Green voters. Ladner's presence at the top of the NPA ticket could help provided that Ladner wins the 2008 election.

6. Gregor Robertson and Raymond Louie, both of whom can make a case that they're best suited to lead Vision Vancouver. Robertson can claim that he will offset Ladner's strengths as an entrepreneur and someone who can talk sensibly about environmental issues; Louie can say the Chinese vote is there for Vision with the right candidate.

Losers

1. Sam Sullivan, for obvious reasons.

2. The NPA members of council (Suzanne Anton, Elizabeth Ball, Kim Capri, and B.C. Lee), who look like political dunces for supporting the mayor en masse while the party went in the other direction.

3. Allan De Genova and David Cadman, because De Genova's best chance to get the Vision nomination was if he would be running against Sullivan as the NPA mayoral candidate. If De Genova wins the nomination on Sunday (June 15), that creates room for COPE councillor Cadman to enter the race as his party's mayoral standard-bearer. There's no reason for Cadman to run, however, if Robertson is the Vision Vancouver nominee because Robertson appeals to the same environmentalist constituency that Cadman would attract.

4. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was quite happy with Sullivan and his happy band of federal Conservative supporters.

5. Drug addicts, who will no longer have a right-wing politician in the mayor's chair who sees them in quite the same light as Sullivan.

6. The media, who will probably end up with a fairly boring mayor after the 2008 election, which will drive down coverage of civic politics on the eve of the Olympics.