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Originally Posted by Cowboy89
I actually think she's highly intelligent and technically very competent. She's an awful politician though because she's absolutely tone def on how to handle and message things publicly. The mayor's job isn't technical, it's to create and spend the political capital publicly and intergovernmentally to get done what must be done for the benefit of Calgarians and to that point she's awful.
The original arena deal falling apart happened because Murray got cold feet with the cost overruns from inflation from when the original deal was signed. By applying additional spend for solar panels / sidewalks et al (Even if that's standard course for the approvals process for similar projects) it gave him an opening to paint the deal falling apart as being related to the 'climate emergency' declaration et al and make it seem like essentially the city's fault when it was actually the exact opposite. This error meant that the city got steamrolled by Murray on deal #2 because a lot of the public was not on the mayor's side.
The menorah lighting mishap. Honestly if she just showed up and lit the menorah like every other Calgary mayor has done since the beginning of time any blowback from pro-Palestinian folks would have been very minor if at all, because it would have run under the surface and probably wouldn't have been noticed. Instead she had to break with tradition and throw out a tweet spotlighting the issue and her position which is counter to a good chunk of Calgarians. It basically created a Streisand effect to the issue and where she stood.
Getting booed at the Saddledome on national TV. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to put the mayor who has the lowest popularity reading of all time in front of an audience that is heavily composed of her most critical demographics in front of a national audience that probably had 10-20% of the entire city of Calgary watching (What could go wrong? . . .lol). Again one can blame her staff for this, but she herself should have had enough self-awareness to avoid this situation.
Again, intelligent person, highly competent on city issues, but extremely poor politician.
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I agree with your other comments, but I bet getting boo'd at the saddledome improves her electability not hurts it.
There's a long history of Canadians voting for politicians they feel have been unfairly wronged. Cretien when they made fun of his speech impediment, when Prentice told Notley math is difficult, etc.
I think she's doing a bad job and is unlikely to get re-elected anyway, but the people who were aggressively booing her probably didn't vote for her the first time, and there is some segment of the rest of the population who will feel sorry for her after that.