Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
I get that Hehr has baggage and my opinion is that is going to be a huge issue for him. I just see all these "he shouldn't be splitting that vote" comments and it rings pretty hollow to me.
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Think of it this way: in the federal election, there are many ridings where a progressive candidate
could legitimately win the seat but due to vote-splitting between the Liberals and NDP, the CPC candidate will sneak up the middle and win with a vote breakdown of something like 43% CPC, 41% Liberal, 12% NDP, 4% Other. If you're a progressive-minded person, you might rightly be upset at NDP supporters who cast their ballot for a non-viable, unelectable candidate when they could have elected the Liberal candidate. While it may not have been their #1 choice, most progressives would certainly prefer the Liberal to win than the Conservative and potentially having an overall CPC election victory.
The same thing is happening here in municipal politics. Progressive voters
must coalesce their support around one candidate or else we're going to end up with Farkas in the mayor's seat. That candidate is Gondek. Kent Hehr is not going to win. He's not going to come anywhere close to winning. I say that as someone who personally likes Hehr and has voted for him in four previous elections. The only thing he will accomplish by entering the race now is siphon some progressive votes away from Gondek. If he genuinely cares about championing progressive causes in municipal politics, the #1 best thing he could do is withdraw from this race.