George Affleck is running for mayor! George Affleck is running for mayor!
You would think that’s the case after a media report last week suggested the NPA city councillor is “considering” a run for the city’s top job. So why didn’t I know about this?
Because Affleck is not running for mayor — not yet, anyway.
As he has told me Friday — and several times since he was elected in November 2011 — Affleck hasn’t said yes to a mayoral run and he hasn’t said no. Kind of like I haven’t said yes to linguini vongole tonight and I haven’t said no, either. In other words, he’ll see what options are on the menu (other possible NPA mayoral candidates) before the dinner hour rolls around (the November 2014 civic election) to make a decision. So there’s time.
And with time, Affleck can go on telling media types that he hasn’t ruled out a run for mayor — kind of like the NPA’s Suzanne Anton did during the 2011 campaign. Anton, who is now the province’s attorney general, waited until May of the election year to announce her intention to be the NPA’s mayoral candidate.
As all political parties do when they haven’t got a sure-win mayoral candidate, they inspect their existing troops and search outside the organization to see if there is a candidate better suited to lead the party on election day.
The NPA, however, has a history of running a city councillor for mayor.
Jennifer Clarke ran unsuccessfully against COPE’s Larry Campbell in 2002, Sam Sullivan beat Jim Green in 2005 and Peter Ladner lost to Gregor Robertson in 2008.
Anton, you will recall, couldn’t beat Robertson, either.
So we’ll wait and see if Affleck continues with the NPA’s trend of promoting its councillors. Meanwhile, rumours are already circulating. Former Liberal minister Colin Hansen, anybody?
Klout power
“Congratulations on your klout score!”
If you’re one of those lucky folks who has not joined the masses on Twitter, that quote means absolutely nothing to you.
Sorry about that.
I predicted a long time ago that geeks will take over the world; it seems that’s already happened. I’m not happy about it, nor are any of my friends over 40.
But in my line of biz, having a Twitter account is apparently essential for all living, breathing journos. Not only do us news types get to interview people and write stories, but we also get to live-tweet and DM people and retweet and schedule a tweet and attach links to our tweets.
Sounds awesome, right?
Sure is. It’s so awesome that even the Vancouver Police Department has a very active Twitter account, which is run by Const. Sandra Glendinning, the force’s designated social media officer.
And it was Glendinning who prompted the aforementioned quote about the klout when she delivered a presentation to the Vancouver Police Board last week on how the department uses social media.
The quote came courtesy of board member Mary Collins, who congratulated Glendinning on the VPD’s klout score, which is a remarkable 79! As I understand it, the more influential you are on social media, the higher your klout score.
The average is said to be 40.
Mine is 50, which is, sadly, nine points lower than George Affleck’s respectable 59.
Must be those Buddy Holly glasses he wears.
