So if longtime COPE member/former councillor/one-time mayoral candidate David Cadman endorsed Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson to continue as the city’s mayor, would anybody care?
Not the media, apparently.
How else to explain that yours truly was the only member of the unwashed typists to attend Cadman’s political marriage to Robertson at Vision headquarters Wednesday morning? (OK, some unfamiliar face snuck in during my exclusive one-on-two but I’d never seen her before and was told later the reporter was from The Observer, an online publication headed up by Vision-friendly folk.)
Anyway, I know a media release was circulated before the press conference, and maybe some of my colleagues are reeling from the rhetoric of the campaign and needed a break, but this was Cadman, after all.
The bearded wonder was literally the face of COPE for years.
Anybody remember the “vote beard, vote Cadman, vote COPE” campaign in 2008?
I do.
I also remember that Cadman was a Vision booster in the 2005, 2008 and 2011 races when both parties ran coordinated campaigns. So Cadman’s political marriage to Robertson is not really news, or a surprise. More of a renewal of their vows.
What’s interesting though is that COPE never ran a mayoral candidate in 2005, 2008 or 2011. The last time the party ran someone for the top job was in 2002. His name was Larry Campbell.
I won’t go in to the ugly history of how Campbell and fellow COPErs Tim Stevenson, Raymond Louie and Jim Green eventually fled the “wild-eyed revolutionaries” – Campbell’s words – to create Vision Vancouver.
But this time around, COPE has a mayoral candidate in Meena Wong.
So why not endorse Wong?
“Look, I know Meena very well,” Cadman told me after praising Robertson as one of the best mayors in the country and noting he was recognized globally for his leadership. “But I don’t want to draw votes from Gregor for somebody who cannot win. It’s real to me and it should be real to all voters that Meena is, at best, a spoiler and might elect [NPA mayoral candidate] Kirk LaPointe, who doesn’t live in the city, can’t vote in the city. And that’s not the way I think we need to go.”
So what’s Wong have to say about that?
Her initial reaction: “Oh my God.”
Then she went on to say Vision must be “running scared” about COPE’s resurgence and that people are fed up with Vision and the NPA because they are “developer parties.”
Cadman said he is genuinely worried that what he considers the COPE stronghold of Grandview-Woodland – where he lives and where residents rallied against Vision over plans for towers in the neighbourhood -- will vote against the mayor’s party.
“All that will succeed in doing is electing the NPA, and that’s not to anyone’s benefit in this city,” he said.
The NPA, of course, has something to say about that and got an interesting endorsement of its own Thursday, with independent mayoral candidate Bob Kasting throwing his support behind LaPointe.
“I think it’s unfortunate that he’s throwing his former political party under the bus for political gain for a party he was never a member of,” said NPA Coun. George Affleck of Cadman’s endorsement. “It’s really unfortunate for COPE and I guess it’s a good reason why they got rid of him.”
As city hall history buffs will recall, Cadman’s political life ended Sept. 18, 2011 when he lost a COPE nomination battle that would have seen him seek a fourth term on council.
Cadman joined COPE in 1976 and is still owed more than $20,000 from the party for helping finance the 2002 campaign. Cadman said the outstanding tab is not connected to his endorsement of Vision Vancouver.
“Money is an aside,” he said. “I assumed that I would get paid back, but I haven’t been. So that’s life.”
Cadman, by the way, has also endorsed the slate picked by the Vancouver and District Labour Council, which includes all Vision candidates, COPE candidate Gayle Gavin, former COPE candidates RJ Aquino of OneCity and Jane Bouey and Gwen Giesbrecht of the Public Education Project, a new party.
The election is Nov. 15.
Note: At the writing of this piece, former NPA president Michael Davis was at Vision's campaign headquarters endorsing Gregor Robertson for mayor.
Last thought: While endorsements are interesting to us city hall beat types and #vanpoli junkies, I wonder how many average voters out there really care about this kind of campaign minutiae. I'm guessing the guy I saw the other day pushing leaves away from a street drain and wondering where the heck city crews were probably doesn't give a hoot.
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