"As to the whether Ms. Clark has any polling numbers concerning her candidacy, the mayoral hopeful said "Well I can't comment on that directly. But I will say this. I wouldn't be running if I didn't think that I could help the NPA elect a majority of council and elect a mayor. I wouldn't be doing it otherwise."

I'm sure that the NPA doesn't canvas high profile individuals without internal polling numbers. BTW, whatever happended to Peter Ladner's supposed candidacy?

National Public Relations Inc's head office is in Montreal.

The NPA and their carpetbagger candidate just can't seem to find ANY good help locally.

This is whats I wrote a few days ago:
"So a consulting practice from Ladysmith is going to be helping a Toronto-based strategy firm get a candidate from Port Moody the job of Mayor of Vancouver?"

Talk about outsourcing!

Who's next to hold the bridal?
The Compass Group?

As to the whether Ms. Clark has any polling numbers concerning her candidacy, the mayoral hopeful said "Well I can't comment on that directly." Ah... Yes you could Christy.
Once a politician, always a politician.

Folks, don't confuse political savvy with leadership - Just look at Jean Cretien: A very good pol, but a lousy leader.

Ambition knows no boundaries, nor I guess shame.Credibility is also suspect, but I guess that some people can get fooled all the time.

National Public Relations has an office in Vancouver. Can't someone work at a local office of a national company and volunteer on a campaign?

Hey - this is an easy way to be a senator Christy. Be a fat cat liberal and be mayor of Vancouver = senate seat.

Come on. She wants to be mayor so she can spend more time with her family.

How about this angle. The Feds. & provincial Liberals need a good little puppet, a la $1000 a day Jane (Bird Droppings) Bird, to run Vancouver, to spin the RAV project. This $2 billion (soon to be $3 billion boondoggle) will be front and centre in the next 3 years and the major media will be compelled to write negatively on it. RAV is a good old Liberal 'pork barrel' project, funnelling (quite legally mind) $1 billion to $2 billion in uneeded spending directly into good old Liberal supporting corporate coffers.

Having Clark as Mayor would screw up the GVRD and TransLink and help hide the RAV scandal.

And what does Hamish say about this?

Frankly Johnston, bringing Christy's son into the conversation is more than a little dispicable. You certainly wouldn't be doing that if Christy had a different set of sexual equipment betwen her legs. Why aren't you concerned about Sam Cullivan's home life or Jim Green's home life?

If, as an initelligent human being, Clark feels she can better balance the needs of her family and still do something that she finds fulfilling in running for the Mayor's chair, perhaps the rest of us should butt out and accept that decision, rather than reverting back to 1950's-style woman bashing.

Oh and PS, Jim Green also voted in favour of RAV so I guess the BC Liberal-Federal Liberal conspiracy also includes him. How devilishly clever.

Johnston didn't bring the child into the conversation, Christy did. She'll have to explain how she justifies using him as the excuse for leaving her post at MCFD when that role was getting too hot and threatening to take her down, bringing more turmoil to a deeply troubled protfolio, and now suddenly, just months later, spending time as a mother is no longer an issue because she wants to become "her worship" in a cushy job that she admits her predecessor has warned her will be very demanding.

Can you speel hypocrite? Blind ambition?

The writer Jerry has conveniently forgotten that it was her son that was supposedly the reason she left politics under Gordo. She has no political intentions was bandied about at the time as well. You can't have it both ways. and to suggest that is reverting back to the 50's woman bashing is just as big a red herring. One hopes the people of Vancouver have the brains to see what she is. A opportunist carpet bagger. Mind you COPE helped set up this senario, and screwed themselves , some what by fighting among the far left members and the more moderate members. The city needs a few more terms of progressive leaders and I don't see this person Clark as one of them. Jim Green is a worker so hopefully the folks will agree. He is no flash in the pan, on to the next photo op. type of guy. and he gets things done. I can't vote for Jim as I don't live there any more. But heck if the candidate from Port Moody can run for Vancouver mayor, maybe I can vote for Jim from Victoria. The old Socred Bill Vandezam came into town to take over and got slaughtered by Mike Harcourt. If I recall Bill had removed himself from politics, but I don't think he claimed it was to look after Lillian.

Johnston didn't bring the child into the conversation, Christy did. She'll have to explain how she justifies using him as the excuse for leaving her post at MCFD when that role was getting too hot and threatening to take her down, bringing more turmoil to a deeply troubled protfolio, and now suddenly, just months later, spending time as a mother is no longer an issue because she wants to become "her worship" in a stepping stone job that she admits her predecessor has warned her will be very demanding.

Puhhhlleeeze! Can you spell hypocrite? Blind ambition?

I didn't know that, a one liner, about Hamish would be taken so seriously. Wasn't l'il Hamish the reason she left provincial politics.

As for Jim Green, he voted for RAV to ensure he got his money for his beloved Woodwards project. No yes RAV vote, no money for Woodwords.

Quite frankly a pox on all their houses.

Politcians are like children. You just can't give them what they want. It only encourages them.

"Frankly Johnston, bringing Christy's son into the conversation is more than a little dispicable."

So wrote 'Jerry". Well, you're being deliberately insincere, Jerry, as everyone can see. Christy used her son as an excuse to leave the BC Cabinet where her ambitions had hit a rigid glass ceiling that Gordon Campbell and Marty Brown were proceeding to crank down, lower and lower, kind of like in one of those old horror movies. To ask what's up with Junior now is hardly despicable, it's quite sensible. Being Mayor of Vancouver would involve roughly the same work hours as being a BC Cabinet Minister.

I still don't believe that Vancouver's smug electors can be persuaded to elect an outsider, unless the candidate came from Alan Fotheringham's proverbial "martini slopes" of West or North Vancouver. Someone from one of those poor, shabby, little Eastern suburbs like Port Moody, where people of little wealth and substance chose to live, is just not going to be marketable to the self-declared "creme de la creme" voters in precincts like Arbutus and Dunbar and Kerrisdale and Point Grey and Shaughnessy and Oakridge and other enclaves of Vancouver City Liberalism.

As for Gary Farrell-Collins moving from Fort Langley-Aldergrove to Vancouver-Little Mountain, later Vancouver Fairview, which included big chunks of Shaughnessy, a fair point, but he was just the local candidate on the Gordon Cambpell ticket, not the star of the show. And what's more, he had seen the light and married money, hence the move.

Oh god, it is all Greater Vancouver and she has been there her whole life.

You really have to be a petty NIMBY kinda person to get caught up in the particulars of a few streets between Boundry and Burnaby.

We're all Vancouverites to the real world, and we all share a mutual experience.

To Global Village guy - you cant be dissing Chretien - consecutive majorities, helped draft constitution with charter, beat the seperatists all the time and lead the nation for over a decade. Christy Clark would be a great leader for the Greater vancouver area. Choice between Green and Clark
I think it is pretty clear

Being a cabinet minister takes a lot more time than being mayor.

1) You have travel back and forth from the lower mainland to Vancouver

2) You have to cover the whole province as the public expects cabinet ministers to be on the road numerous times a year.

Just taking the travel time alone, that is a saving of some 700 to 800 hours a year (1/2 of a fulltime job)

3) Large provincial ministries are bigger and harder to manage than a municipal government.

The budget of the city is also less than 1/2 of the budget of the last ministry that Christy Clark handled. MCFD is also by nature a killer gig - politicians that get out of the social services ministries with no bad battle scars are good at what they do or very, very lucky.

The funny thing about all of this is that Jim Green is much more moderate than anyone on the right thinks he is, and Christy Clark is much more moderate than anyone on the left thinks she is.

Christy Clark is dynamic, smart and one of the only progressives from the Gordon Campbell administration. I am sure that this had as much to do with resigning as having to comfort a crying baby on the float plane every week.

Get another thing straight: Port Moody is not a shabby suburb. Houses in her neighbourhood (and neighbouring Westwood Plateau) are just as high (or higher) as on the North Shore.

Port Moody is only 20 minutes away on West Coast Express, and most of the people living there say that they live in Vancouver. It is closer to downtown than UBC.

The Liberals plan to run a women against Carole James next election to help soften their image and recover the vote lost last time around. Unfortunately for Christy that women is Carole Taylor which is why she quit in the first place.

The run for Vancouver mayor is only about building exposure. Even if she is elected, she will jump given the first opportunity to move up.

Should be interesting, look for the Taylor camp to undercut the mayoral bid and keep Christy in the sidelines.

Personally I am amazed at all of the ruckus from the resident Pinko’s here, clearly they are afraid of Christy. This move surprises me. Most would agree the odds are against her, and yet she is willing to go forward. Gutsy. I like gutsy in a politician. The NPA is nuts if they can’t keep two good horses in the race. Jim Green is flake and is no Larry Campbell, that much we know. However the COPE crap must come to an end, and if Christy and Sullivan can find a way to work together, the hordes will be back where they belong, with Vancouver moving forward as a result.

I wonder if Helen is arguing for amalgamation of the GVRD? If so, I would be pleased to hear it.

Bernard draws some essentially fake distinctions between municipal and provincial politics. While one can argue that there is more travelling or bigger budgets at the provincial level, it's all quite meaningless. Once the job becomes not only full time but more than full time, the appearance of greater or lesser demands is essentially illusory. Just ask little Hamish.

I'll leave wee Hamish out of this one. I operated a store in Vancouver for 21 years till I closed it down las December. The rot in Vancouver started well before the COPE majority was elected. The NPA were an arrogant bunch and didn't care one bit about Eaat Vancouver or the downtown. The West side was their only concern.

That all changed with COPE. But the public didn't get what they expected, instead they got one guy who was more concerned in getting re-elected provincially, a media gadfly mayor, a one issue (Woodwards) wonder, and a lady who thinks world issues are more important than the job she was elected to, plus the two NPA types.

Of course the coucil was disfunctional, Campbell saw to that, the Liberal in COPE's clothing, made sure of it and got a plum Senate seat as reward for being a good puppy.

If carpet bagger Christie is elected as mayor, she will be a Liberal puppet and care little for real Vancouver concerns.

The sad fact is, our current system works against people who would truely be good candidates for election and we are the poorer for it.

Hey I'm not a pinko or afraid of Christy. In fact, most REAL New Democrats hate the COPE crowd which whoud rather spend tax dollars condemning frickin' Star Wars and doling cash out to every whiny special interest group imaginable, all the while bankrupting the city, than getting anything done for working people (admittedly a dwindling group, especially around the Commercial Drive area.) But the fact is, Christy's a carpetbagger, and she's using the job as a stepping stone to Premier. Well, we can only hope. Because the other option, a la Kim Campbell, is even scarier. Reality is, though, with Carole Taylor as Gord's new favourite poster girl, Christy will have a tough time getting to the premier's chair. And that's just fine, because Christy Clark is emblematic of all that's wrong with the world: an ivory tower professional student latte sucker who never worked a day in her life who is actually calling the shots. I'd support a working person for mayor, maybe a longshoreman or a teamster. Or, maybe bring back Glen.

Christy is fun. Gordon Campbell is no fun. No wonder she didn't want to stick around.

She must have seen Larry Campbell having so much fun, that she had to get in on it.

"The government is going to find another politician, but Hamish isn't going to find another mother."

This was Ms. Clark a year ago on her exit from politics. What has changed?

All of you who are trying to draw distinctions between a provincial cabinet minister's job and the mayor's job are missing the point - both are much more than full-time positions and very demanding.

It's not that I, or anyone else I believe, begrudge any individual from trying to juggle parenthood and a public life. All the more power to Christy Clark and anyone else who takes on that challenge.

But where I do take offense, and where I believe others do as well, is when a politician exploits her own family for political purposes. Ms. Clark had so much of the population, including myself, sympathizing with her devotion to family last year when she dropped out of public life. To ask us to forget about all of that a year later is too much. To exploit her family for her own political purposes is appalling.

if people in vancouver can put up with the outdated prop that comes from councilors such as ann roberts or tim louis,,i,m sure christy clark will be a much needed breath of fresh air..

the npa must get the vote out????

nic

I'm So Happy That Christy is Running. She'll Make a Good Mayor of Vancouver. She'll Bring Back Stability to Vancouver, which COPE has done little of that. Larry was a Great Mayor but He was in a Party that Defied him that Costed us Wal-Mart and Projects But he'll be a great Senator from Vancouver.

FACT:
If Christy Wins She'll be the First Woman Mayor of Vancouver and have Eternal Glory.

Beware the career politco, I say. An "I know best" attitude and sense of entitlement kicks in early for those who've done little else for a living except exist on the public payroll. Or have people forgotten Glen Clark?

And really that's what every washed-up ex-BC Liberal leadership candidate wants isn't it? "Eternal Glory".

COPE is looking at an extinction event, and a richly deserved one at that. They can get together over shade-grown coffee and rave about Bush and globalization all day. Their last big mistake will be to run David Cadman, making it easier for even the parachuting Christy to get elected in her new home.

Who's afraid of Christy? Johnston is right. She turned her back on Vancouver as Education Minister, she turned her back on the troubled children's ministry and she's now turning her back on what she herself cited as the need to spend more time with her son. Her record shows her as a shallow, unprincipled political climber who will put ambition and self interest before the needs of our city, just as she's done to everyone else. Why would the NPA put someone like that above Sam Sullivan, given his years of service at City Hall and his record of achievement?

...oh, I forgot, she's perky and doesn't have a wheelchair. Now there's an inspiring symbol of the NPA's political vision!

If Ms. Clark is the best alternative they can muster to face Jim Green or COPE, a lot of people will just sit home and damn the lot of them come election day.

Dagmar: "...Christy Clark is emblematic of all that's wrong with the world: an ivory tower professional student latte sucker ..."

John Savory: "[COPE] can get together over shade-grown coffee and rave about Bush and globalization all day."

I guess my age is showing. I can remember when BC provincial politics, and it's bastard child BC local politics, revolved around the consumption of cheap draft beer. The fights were much better, but the smoke in those places was a real health hazard.

I just want to say, in a more serioius vein, that I am in very strong agreement with "Appalled" on the Hamish issue. And I would like to ask "Johnston" if he, along with "Helen", would be willing to join me in supporting the amalgamation of the entire GVRD under a single Mayor, with a system of wards that elected one City Councillor, one School Trustee, and one Health Trustee each (with accompanying changes to the present provincially run Health Regions, Vancouver-Coastal and Fraser). Would this get us away from stupid battles over locations for American dime stores, and get us onto serious issues, like Gateway and the need for Greater Vancouver to finally begin construction of a system of divided, multi-laned, controlled access highways?

I'm in agreement. We need to get multi-layered highways now, and if we could pave over COPE headquarters and the homes of the Vancouver NDP MLAs to construct these highways, all the better. We also need to triple (not twin) the Port Mann bridge.

And, to those NPA hacks who criticize the COPE fair trade coffee crowd, you're just as bad and you have no right criticizing the 'urban cultured' crowd... only I can do that.

Gotta go. Time to baste my spotted owl that I've got going on the BBQ.

XOXO

Daggy

lets face it ,,, cope is useless dog fu..... who expect the people that have a life too cover there , lazy fu..... ass

i will personally help any one who needs help,
i mean anyone...

i,m nic

Sounds like you need help yourself, nic.

Lets stop talking about Hamish. I think its pretty lame, stupid and not very productive. It's just not cool.

Ok Thanks

I am happy my mom is running for Mayor.

It means that I don't have to go to Victoria and hang around that creepy Gordon Campbell.

Look, guys. Hamish is now 4 years old. It is a lot different from a two year old.

He is going into pre-school, and he has every right to go to pre-school.

Christy said that her family needed more of her. If she lives in Vancouver, she will not have a commute to work. Think about it for a second. A commute from Port Moody to Victoria by ferry is 5 hours. By float plane it is an hour and a half. Ministers have to do that trip all the time, all throughout the year, quite often more than 2 or 3 times per week.

If she can find a place near city hall, she will have way more time to devote to her family even if she works just as hard as she did as Deputy Premier.

Besides, Larry Campbell gets drunk for about 3 hours a day as it is. She can spend that Larry "drunk time" with her son instead.

Liberal apologists like Peter A. Ker think it's wrong to mention Christy's reversal on the issue of time with the family. Then along comes Christy Supporter to do some outright libel on Larry Campbell. Hasn't she been told that Larry's now a fellow Liberal?

so budd, were you raised in soup kitchen,??
i am a compassionate person, but also i see the big picture.

socialist these days are wearing blindfolds.

since you mentioned it,, icould use some help, make the check out for, for,, oh well you no whats best,right.budd.......

nic

Jim Who?

Who cares if Christy is using this to possibly become Premier someday. The only way her plan would work would be for her to be one hell of a mayor. Sounds like a pretty good incentive to do a good job...

Wow, sure seems like Ms. Clark's candidacy has the chattering classless chattering! She sure has that effect on people. So much so that the Mean Green team's flabbergasted initial response was to try and bully her out of the race. Well, they sure picked the wrong woman to try and scare out. People seem to predict he will make it a nasty campaign ... well, I predict his mean Green team will be transparently shallow. People will see that beyond the "but, but, she doesn't even LIVE in Vancouver" schtick, they have nothing else. "Vision" Vancouver? The only vision they have is the one that Mayor Larry has already fulfilled!!

Sorry mean Green the has-been ... time to find someone else's coat-tails to ride on.

I say, Mr. III, looks like Christy's got the chattering classless over at your NPA tent all ruffled as well, and for unauthorized use of official stationery no less! For Shame! Next you'll be having to count the silverware!

Sir, your brassy Mayoral Wannabee is transparent enough to ruffle feathers across the political spectrum all on her own, with no help from the mean Mr. Green.

you are referring to a CKNW story that is not correct.

Sounds like some loose cannon on the Sam Sullivan campaign is putting on a negative whisper campaign.

Does Sam approve?

Remember the old adage of "in glass houses...."

"Sounds like some loose cannon on the Sam Sullivan campaign is putting on a negative whisper campaign."

Really? Because they're running with it. Maybe you should let them know, because we haven't heard a peep from Christy.

But, uh, she's not even from Vancouver...

you'd think this wouldn't even be aloud!

N says:
"
"Sounds like some loose cannon on the Sam Sullivan campaign is putting on a negative whisper campaign."

Really? Because they're running with it. Maybe you should let them know, because we haven't heard a peep from Christy.""

Running with what? The fact that an email was sent out to NPA members, asking what they think of Christy's candidacy? Oh, for shame!!

I guess Sam Sullivan's spindoctors want us to think that an email amongst friends, seeking ideas, is some kind of crime.

I am a member of the NPA, and I was pleased to get a note from Christy asking what I thought. I would have been just as happy to get a note from Sam asking what I thought.

I guess Christy is reaching out, while Sam's people are trying to play silly games. Sam has got to get control over his spindoctors before he starts embarassing himself.

I, for one, believe in democratic debate, not internal bickering.

Anyone who publicly tries to embarass the NPA will not only lose my vote, but will lose the vote of many long-time NPA members.

I wouldn't vote for either Green or Clark. With Clark, there's no "there" there. She has no substance. Green has abandoned his left-wing roots to become a completely unprincipled egotist carrying on the Larry Campbell personality cult.

If Cadman or someone else decent runs for COPE, I'll vote for them.

If COPE doesn't run a candidate, and Sullivan runs for the NPA, I might consider voting for Sullivan. I disagree with him most of the time, but at least he has council experience and he has opinions that he's thought through.

If it's Clark versus Green and no COPE mayoral candidate, I'll find some other candidate to vote for.

Christy's record amply demonstrates that nothing is as important as herself and her ruthless pursuit of power. We are nothing but a launching pad for her, a useful but otherwise unimportant rung on the political ladder she is climbing. In education, she turned her back on Vancouver's schools and the very NPA leaders whose support she's now seeking. She's turning her back on her own child, her own community and her own constituents because "Mayor of Port Moody" doesn't fit as well with her long-term ambitions. Her only loyalty is to whoever can best help further her political ambitions at the moment -- ask all the others whom she's used and tossed aside.

It doesn't take a genius to read this open book and the NPA will be throwing away the opportunity now before them if it runs with this blatant opportunist.

What a load of crap!

Christy is someone who loves politics and loves people. She is definitely not a power hungry person. She likes the limelight, but, hey -- what's wrong with that.

She's smart, she's still relatively young, she's fresh, and she's not a raving right-winger or left-winger. She is a Liberal, and a proud Liberal.

She is very much in the same mold, in terms of policy, as Mike Harcourt and Larry Campbell.

Her only mistake was to be so loyal to Gordon Campbell and his weirdo right-wing creepiness.

Look for a much more balanced, popular, energetic mayor with Christy Clark compared to the aging hippie Jim Green. People like Jim Green are the OLD, tired generation. People like Christy are the NEW generation.