On the move!
Agh! You’re still here? My new site and weblog, ianking.ca is now up and running; new posts are building up over there, never to be mirrored here. Go! What are you waiting for? All the stuff worth keeping has been migrated over to the new server, and I don’t anticipate making any more posts here.
Bloggers and webmasters: Update your links! Simply replace vancouverscrum.blogspot.com with www.ianking.ca in your blogrolls or bookmarks to point to the new site. Old posts will remain on this server for as long as the people at Blogger/Google allow them to remain; unfortunately, I’m not going to bother to come up with any way of converting permalinks on this blog to their corresponding posts on the new site. Yes, I plead laziness. I also realize the irony of switching away from Blogger just it starts to add features that the demanding blog nerds insist upon.
Thanks for reading and linking, and see you over at ianking.ca!
—Ian King, December 13, 2004
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Day 3 - And the winner is...
The NDP in Burnaby-Douglas are hoping that it'll be Bill Siksay, constituency assistant to incumbent MP Svend Robinson, who stepped aside last month after a bizarre jewelry theft. Siksay defeated former MLA and current city councillor Pietro Calendino at tonight's rescheduled nomination meeting.
Here's the quick facts on Siksay: 49 years old, has worked for Robinson since 1986. Ran in Vancouver Centre in 1997, came a distant third. Went back to working for Robinson and running what is regarded as one of the best constituency offices in the country. Now, he has to overcome a late start and depend on a strong local NDP political machine (they don't call it the People's Republic of Burnaby for nothin') and a resurgent party to win one for the Svendster.
Burnaby-Douglas was already wild while the Prime Minister and his minions were still debating when to call the election. Robinson's sudden departure and tearful presser was the first shakeup. Then, you had accusations of racism from local Liberals Tony Kuo (famous for teary appearances on national TV) and Tony Lee (rather more restrained, but still mighty pissed at the stalling), both of whom had been organizing to get the nomination for months but were being blocked by the party. (It's worth noting that the "racist" Liberals are still running a dozen visible minority candidates in BC, twice as many as the Conservatives and four times as many as the NDP.) Then, the party deigned provincial party prez Bill Cunningham the Chosen One in Burnaby Douglas.
As you may well know, the local Liberal riding association exec then quit in protest, leaving Cunningham suddely lacking in a local campaign organization and a lot of potential Liberal voters disgusted and reconsidering their options. Finally, Conservative candidate George Drazenovic and his supporters are feeling mighty confident about their ability to capitalize on his opponents' woes, but he's got his own handicap: his party is not polling as strongly in BC as the Canadian Alliance did at this time last election, and North Burnaby is not naturally inclined towards the Conservatives.
Is this one race to watch, or what?
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