God help us.

One of the first questions that the NPA grassroots should put to Ms Clark is to ask why, in her former role as Education Minister, she bluntly refused to meet with or respond to the concerns of 14,000 Vancouver parents from across the political spectrum who wrote her in 2002, with the support of their NPA-run school board, pleading with her to fully fund the teachers' pay increase that she had legislated that year. The non-partisan letter writing campaign was launched by Vancouver PACS after the NPA-run School Board revealed that it would have to make $25 million in damaging cuts as a result of Ms Clark's decision to award an increase that she was not prepared to fund.

Clark's high-handed response was to dismiss the protest as political, when in fact it was largely organized by West side PACs, with broad support from traditional Liberal/NPA neighbourhoods and even the endorsement of NPA Board Chair Barbara Buchanan and her fellow trustees.

Bitterness over the school cuts, which affected everything from multicultural workers to enrichment programs, no doubt influenced the Vancouver voters who swept the NPA off the school board that fall, ending years of dominance. Three years later, after further erosion of libraries and other core school services, thanks to Ms. Clark's policies as Education Minister, her fellow Liberal candidates struggled to maintain their seats in what had once been traditional Liberal/NPA strongholds, while east siders tossed out four of her Liberal colleagues, electing former nemesis, ex-BCTF chief David Chudnovsky, of all people!

Here are some more critical questions that the NPA "grassroots" might put to Ms Clark: Given that Vancouver Liberal candidates refused to commit to funding any additional educational costs that they impose if re-elected in may 2005 -- for example, any potential salary increase for teachers that might result from the current contract negotiations -- where would she stand on this issue? Will she support her former Liberal colleagues in downloading more costs onto Vancouver schools, thus further eroding services along with the NPA's credibility? Will she simply dismiss all concerns as political, even when they come from her own NPA grassroots, and simply refuse to face or respond to them?

Hey, I'm no fan of Jim's but I just might have to vote for him if the alternative is Christy!

Fun to watch the doctrinaire socialists go into an absolute tizzy. Clark was the Education Minister, not the Finance Minister and not the Premier. She didn't set the budget for the education portfolio, which was never cut, by the way, just not increased as much as you would have liked it to be.

The province's fiscal position was poor, we tightened our belts for a couple of years and now things are looking fine. Get over it.

Just watch. Christy is going to be positive and have a positive vision for the city and her opponents are going to launch poisonous attack after poisonous attack and end up looking like the bunch of mean-spirited malcontents they are.

Guess who's going to appeal to the average voter?

...uh, Jerry, perhaps my remarks were too complicated to penetrate all that perky positivity, but I think Ms. Clark's blithe dismissal of NPA loyalists as "doctrinaire socialists" was exactly the problem.

"Get over it!" is not exactly the long-awaited response that they'll be looking for either.

1. I'm a NPA member but moved out of Vancouver so I can't vote during the nomination but will come out and assist candidates in the election who I think are deserving of my support.

2. I think Christy would develop into a great mayor but I tend to favour mayoral candidates who have elected as councillors or at least were major civic activists who sat for years on committees and learned from the bottom up. I also have concerns that Christy is using this to become Premier which I do not believe is the best motive.

3. I'm on the conservative side of the NPA coalition of conservatives and liberals, I don't tend to support any federal liberal but Sam has made some very unwise choices as to who is organizing his campaign and thus would probably end up running the campaign in the fall. There is someone there who would blow a three way race against two NDPers. He'd probably be the paid campaign manager which is what he really wants.

4. Christy is far more electable and Jim Green or David Cadman are unacceptable as a mayor. They'll be dishing out free drugs at Council meetings next!

Let's see... a civic election where education is the hot issue, focussing attention on the one wing of the COPE slate that has been fairly popular and moderately successful, as opposed to the dopes at City Hall.

Yay, Christy, there may be hope for COPE after all!

Yes, Christy is a very well spoken and dynamic individual, however as one person pointed out, she has not been in the treanches, working tirelessly for the people of Vancouver as Sam Sullivan has for many years. I have great admiration for him.

I am also concerned over someone using the coveted mayoral seat as a launching pad to the big chair in Victoria. Alas, her motivation for being mayor is therefore quite apparent.

By the way, isn't her postal code somewhere in Port Moody?

Ah, to "Anon" education is not an issue in municipal government. It's a school board election issue.

Your buddy Carol James is largely responsible for the problems you're whining about, she treated her school board time as a means to become NDP rather than helping find real solutions. Your Christy bashing is just partisan nonsense. There are reasons for and against this within the nomination arena which is where we are at now. If she is nominated the radical left will spew a fountain of bile about provincial issues which trash Christy for not spending more of our tax dollars but of course they will ignore that the Harcourt/Clark government never met the demands of their own left wing lobby groups.

Sorry George - Harcourt/Clark and James aren't running, Chrsity is. And as you pointed out, she has no ercord in Vancouver politics, so we'll have to judge based on how she treated us as minister, which brings us back to education, w hich was a sore point for many people. (ask her about the meeting she attended at King George school in '02, where she was alsmost lynched by parents. She never returned to Vancouver after that, preferring the friendlier folks out in Surrey - perhaps she should run there

And as your own NPA friend said, she's going to have to explain how attentive she will be to their parking rtansit, garbage concerns if she didn't have the time of day 14 thousand constituents when she was their Education Minister

Someone else said it, if she's the Mayor, might as well move the Mayors office to Gordo's quarters in Victoria or down at Canada Place