 You would think that Gerry Scott would have asked rookie candidates if they had any skanky photos of themselves lurking in cyberspace, or if they had been consuming illegal substances on videotape. Pieta Woolley |
Most of the public don't know who Gerry Scott is, but he's a familiar face to political insiders.
He is the former husband of Joy MacPhail, and he often plays major roles in NDP campaigns. He chaired the federal NDP campaign in B.C. in 2008, and he's cochair of the B.C. NDP campaign in the 2009 provincial election.
Scott also used to be the climate-change campaigner for the David Suzuki Foundation, which is rather odd considering that Suzuki and the NDP are now at odds over the B.C. carbon tax.
Last year, three rookie federal NDP candidates in B.C. stepped aside in the midst of the campaign that Scott headed:
* Dana Larsen because of video footage on the Internet of him driving while smoking a joint
* Kirk Tousaw because he was allegedly smoking marijuana
* Julian West because he had gone skinnydipping more than a decade ago with some teenagers in attendance
You would think that Scott would have asked rookie candidates this time if they had any skanky photos of themselves lurking in cyberspace, or if they had been consuming illegal substances on videotape.
Maybe he did. But for some reason, rookie NDP candidate Ray Lam's photos of him cavorting with friends in a sexually provocative way somehow eluded the NDP brass until the story broke recently in the news.
The photos were on Lam's "private" Facebook page, and today he stepped down as the NDP candidate in Vancouver-False Creek.
This blooper will derail the NDP campaign for a day. The media will splash the photos for all to see. Other hardworking NDP candidates will lose a bit of momentum. And it's all because the provincial campaign didn't do its homework on a rookie candidate.
We should live in a world where some harmless fun doesn't force a candidate to have to resign. But the reality is there are a lot of prudes out there—including in the electronic media—and they will focus on this to the exclusion of serious issues 10 times out of 10.
And that's why campaign teams should prevent this nonsense from derailing a party from focusing on its key message.
Today, the NDP released some hardhitting ads in advance of their broadcast later this week. I can't believe that the NDP would have made this decision today—when the Canucks were playing the Blues and the newscasts were the last thing on most people's minds. But they had to get something out there to reduce the sting of a candidate's resignation.
Vancouver-False Creek was already the Green party's best bet with its deputy leader, small businessman Damian Kettlewell, carrying the flag.
Now, he's in even better shape, with a genuine shot at winning. It's not what the NDP needs right now: a young, articulate, and media-savvy Green party MLA who has the potential to use his prominence in the legislature to swing a lot more NDP voters his way in the future.
And it could all be because the NDP campaign officials didn't check out Lam's Facebook page before the election campaign began. Imagine that: the Greens might elect their first MLA thanks to some rank incompetence by the NDP brass, who failed to apply the lessons learned during last year's federal campaign.
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Comments
http://mgcltd.blogspot.com/2009/01/crotch-shot-hypothesis-and-politics-o...
I would have more respect for the politician that stands firm and runs the course. Bowing down for something as little as this is tells me that person is easily swayed and therefore has no place in politics.
The only thing Kettlewell is going to do is make sure the Liberal candidate wins.
The NDP doesn't have millions of dollars to hire private dicks to check out candidates legends. They have to make do with the candidate disclosure.
We all have stuff in our background that is as bad or worse than any of the examples you listed - you do, I do and I'm sure 90% of the candidates in all parties do. They just hope and pray that the mainstream media scum don' t find it.
Perfectly legal nude photos, intemperate remarks, tasteless jocks, a bad relationship, too much partying twenty years ago, a teen romance gone bad - all fodder for the scum in our mainstream press.
The remaining candidates are so boring they could sell their speeches as cures for insomniacs.
seth
THIS PROVINCE IS FULL of HICKS and BUMPKINS if this is what passes for political knowledge.
Also, Ray Lam probably shouldn't have posted those pics to Facebook, but no lives were endangered, and to perfectly honest I don't see how this would have swayed the voters of Vancouver-False Creek. Not exactly the Bible Belt, eh?
As for the need for the NDP to vet their candidates more thoroughly, where are we going to draw the line? A few weeks ago, the provincial Liberals in Nova Scotia attempted to derail NDP candidate Lenore Zann's campaign by distributing photos of her appearing top-free in an episode of The L Word. Imagine that. A woman with *breasts.* And she's not even ashamed of it!
The funny part is that most of us would never have seen the photo of Lam had Mary McNeil not drawn everyone's attention to it. Same goes for Zann's appearance on the L Word. Chances are if you're watching that show, you're not going to be bother by a pair of breasts.
Yet here are these half-wits pointing and scoffing and showing us all how ignorant and regressive they are. Almost as pathetic as the NDP once again falling all over itself to apologize for something that doesn't warrant it.
Time to get some grown-ups in government for a change.
I agree that as "embarassments" go these photos are pretty small time stuff, no offence committed. No doubt some prudish people think it's too much, but many more are happy to say "Harrumpf" and "tut tut" just to score points.
I do agree that it does sound awfully like last fall all over again, but maybe it's time for voters to tell the media that there's been enough of all this.
Last fall many media outlets accepted stories that Julian West had done something truly out of scope without in my opinion getting anywhere near the bottom of things, if you'll pardon the expression. In a province that was once rocked by Rachel Marsden's charges, I am surprised no reporter or media outlet was interested in West's side of the story. I wonder if that is because of the party he represented?
Rod Smelser
How about the fact that Carole James and her candidate votting process is as full of holes as the NDP’s platform.
Or about as full of holes as the NDP’s memory:
http://votesmartbc.com/issues_badfortheeconomy
The NDP seems to be conveniently forgetful when it comes to procedures, or policy, or their record.
Can this be a serious statement? Even in an election it's hard to believe people can be this silly, unless they've got a case of full-blown McDworkinism going on.
Rod Smelser
Honestly, People need to grow up. There are pictures similar to this on pretty much every college student's /20 something's facebook page. How on earth will you convince young people to become involved in politics when it seems like any past indescretion, however small, is career ending (unless you're already in power) Are you looking for politicians or priests?