Politicians, it’s said, campaign from the wings and then govern from the centre. In other words, to get elected, candidates articulate more extreme positions than they will actually exercise if elected, when compromise and accommodation become the necessary expressions of day-to-day governance.
But that didn’t work for the NPA in this election. Indeed, their most fundamental miscalculation was the negative and mean-spirited excess with which they ran their campaign, pushing out to an extreme where even some of their supporters didn’t want to be.
Example: a letter sent out by NPA campaign fundraiser Rob Macdonald –
For three years now Vancouver has suffered through the worst government in living memory and it can all be traced to the FAILED LEADERSHIP of Mayor Moonbeam, Gregor Robertson.
Moonbeam has focussed on idiotic backyard chicken coops instead of solving homelessness. That’s FAILED LEADERSHIP.
Moonbeam allowed and encouraged all the tents to get set up at the Art Gallery and then supplied his anarchist friends with a million dollars’ worth of taxpayer paid power, water, security and porta-potties and then allowed a drug fest to take place causing overdoses and the death of a young girl. Just imagine if that young girl was your daughter. That is FAILED LEADERSHIP.
And so on. That email came forwarded from a long-time NPA supporter with the subject line: “Why I Don’t Support the NPA Anymore”. When you start losing the people who give you money, it’s time to rethink your strategy. But it was too late.
The other major part of the strategy was the trivialization of Vision’s green strategy. That repetition of ‘backyard chickens and wheat fields’ only worked for those who found such minor commitments grossly annoying – something, I confess, I could never quite grasp. Why was Macdonald, in particular, so hysterically upset with a bike lane that had such minor impact in the scheme of things? (Please, don’t get him – or me – going.)
Maybe they believed their own mantra, and thought the public did too. But apparently these trivia didn’t piss off the bulk of voters anywhere near the way they did the strategists of the NPA campaign, influenced, I presume, by the excessive rhetoric of the City Caucus blog whose founder, Mike Klassen, was a front-running candidate and insider (and possible beneficiary of much of the blame for the results).
And it may well have backfired by targeting the kind of policies that particularly appealed to a constituency Vision was able to so effectively mobilize – the under 30’s who volunteered by the hundreds, excited to be part of a campaign they could be proud of: the kind of new voter who, as a friend characterized, “wants to hear a good band in a local cafe, ride a bike home to an affordable apartment, and get up to a job that helps make things better.”
Those ideals are something Suzanne Anton would understand too, given her record on the Park Board and Council. But that’s not what came out of her mouth. Too many people heard a grating whine, despite the positive promises in the platform that never overcame the attack rhetoric. She was not, in a word, authentic. The Anton committed to the youth, culture and quality of life in this city didn’t match the Anton who, by lacking respect for her opponent, failed to connect with those who want a leader in which they see something of the better nature of themselves.
So what now for the NPA?
Maybe the association will find common cause with Adriane Carr, who made civic history as the first capital-G greenie. Carr will likely occupy the territory staked out by Randy Helten and Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver (which oddly, didn’t poll all that well in the West End, where it first emerged). By arguing against the excesses of development (particularly of any blanket rezonings that would boost densities in the name of affordability), Carr may be able to shape a coalition of interest with the new NPA councillors.
By defending neighbourhoods from change, both may reap political benefit, at least until the NPA can re-invent itself yet again – the most distinguishing feature of its 74-year history. But it has to stop listening to those, many of whom don’t actually live in Vancouver, who think Toronto’s Rob Ford was on to something. When Vancouverites start voting for Vision in West Point Grey (see the map), times have changed.
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What’s left for COPE, which may have made a miscalculation in dumping David Cadman? While COPEsters punished Cadman for his lack of attention to the party, the voters then punished them – at least the Vision voters who apparently didn’t keep up their side of the agreement and plumped only for their own kind. Here’s where the traditional strategy of playing to the far left end of the spectrum may pay off; it’s where COPE is comfortable in any event, and it has the territory to itself as Vision reinforces its centrist stronghold.
And that centre recognizes not just the generational changes rapidly building in our society, but also other demographics too compicated to get into here (which, anyway, I don’t understand in all their complexity. ) But as the map shows, the NPA made headway north of Kingsway on the far-east border of the city. That has to mean something. And the little island of green in Kerrisdale may be another indication of change. Or not.
That’s the great thing about politics. It accommodates every opinion on a very wide spectrum. You just never know where along the way everyone will end up.
A great night except for COPE not faring well.
Good analysis for the most part
Not that we will ever really know but a likely explanation is that it was the Green Party supporters not voting for COPE that made the difference. In the 2008 election, when the Green Party cooperated with COPE and Vision not to run more than the total number spaces available. COPE fared much better then. In this election, for council, 4 total COPE+Green candidates were completing for 3 spaces. For Park Board, the 3 total COPE+Green candidates were competing for 2 spaces. In School Board, 5 total COPE+Green competing for 4 spaces. The more spaces available, the better the COPE candidates did and in School Board, got 1 elected and the others were rather close. In Park Board, with the fewest spaces available, neither the COPE or Green candidates did well. In fact, in School Board the COPE candidate did better than the last place Vision.
Sure I expect not all core Vision supporters voted COPE but I’m sure than not all core COPE voters supporters. Some I expect went NSV.
I hope in the next election, the Greens, COPE and Vision will come to an agreement again. Perhaps the Greens run one council, COPE runs 2 then COPE and Vision share the Park Board and School Board. There might be a case for a Green on the Park Board too. They have faired OK there with 2 Greens elected over the years. Cassels and MacKinnon who out polled both COPE candidates.
Carr really didn’t seem to pull many votes from the NPA who got 1 more elected on council this time. The other problem for COPE could have been NSV or some of the independents pulling some votes.
Clearly, splitting the progressive vote only helps the NPA.
I think your comments are spot-on about the miscalculated NPA campaign strategy. The negative vitriol spewed, especially at the start of the last week of the public campaign, seemed to do a better job of ensuring that the Vision vote got to the polls to ensure that such antics would not be rewarded. It could only be considered embarrassing by NPA-supporters with a shred of ability to think of other perspectives.
Perhaps the party took the personal reaction of developer Macdonald to Vision’s initiatives too much to heart. His ownership of two block faces on Dunsmuir St (St Regis Hotel and The Hudson/Shore Club) and the election material strongly critical of bike lanes that remove automobile access clearly went hand in hand. The not so subtle anti-environment tone did not do the NPA much favour, and undermined the work previous NPA councils have done. (Not that the implementation of the bike lanes was unassailable, certainly it seems a better design of the Hornby/Georgia intersection, for example, could have resulted in a less easy target.)
Perhaps the big question now is whether any of the parties wish to create the sort of “big tent” approach that the NPA had in the 1990s, where a diverse range of opinions existed in caucus. That was curtailed with the end of Councillors Chiavario and Herbert, however. Now Vision will be faced with the same issue. Clearly running only seven Council candidates helped ensure their victory, and allowed voters to then vote for the remaining three spots based on their other convictions. Will Vision try to engage more moderate COPE members, and even disaffected NPA members, and run a full slate in three years? That would pose considerable risk though if COPE continued to run candidates and risk splitting a constituency that now runs from the centre to the left, allowing a continued right-leaning NPA to win from vote splitting. It would also potentially limit the future success of the Greens, who likely benefitted well from the 7-3 Vision-COPE slate.
In any event, it is good to see that the at-large system worked remarkably representatively this time as many voters didn’t vote the full slates preferred by the major parties. It will be interesting to see how things go at Council over the next term, and what repercussions that will have on strategies in 2014.
I’m very heartened to see that all of the negative rhetoric I’ve been hearing over and over again about chicken coops, wheat farming, bike lanes and even Occupy Vancouver really didn’t translate into actual votes. It’s tremendously encouraging to see that the voters in general clearly recognize that these really aren’t the end-of-the-world scenarios that some folks seem heck-bent on making them out to be.
I love this city, my kind of people (mostly) live here. (^_^)
@Ian: Do tell what a better design of Hornby and Georgia would look like to you. I’ve yet to hear a concrete (ha, ha) suggestion on that one that doesn’t throw cyclists to the wolves so that cars can get stuck on top of the bike lane by crossing pedestrians.
@Brian: I expect there should be a way to mediate the crossing mid-block, such that the right-turning auto traffic and bike conflict can be relocated there, giving more green time for both modes there and at the intersection with Georgia. Yes, it would require a signal ($) at the “crossing” and likely some curb work or parking loss, but at least would reduce the highly visible right-turn queue that seems to be one of the highest impacts of the bike lanes, notwithstanding the hard to substantiate business loss question. Traffic from the art gallery pullout might also then be required to turn right at Georgia but that would be relatively low on the collateral damage scale.
I’m not familiar with anything like what you’re describing. I suppose that with an additional signal, most of the concerns with the sharp angle bike-car crossing that would be created (e.g. Portland) would be addressed, and perhaps the light timing wouldn’t even have to favour one mode or to the other due to the speed differential, but it does seem to be a rather unusual measure.
Couple questions: how far up would this additional signal be (would it leave enough room for queueing)? How would they prevent the confusion that occurred elsewhere (i.e. Nelson) with a different signal phase on the right and other issues?
And, my bottom line, are we sure that the problem is actually worse than before and that this change would actually be a gain in rush hour – keeping in mind that as soon as the peds get the walk light, they’re going to keep streaming across?
@Ian Fisher
It is not the bike signal on Hornby that tends cause backups at streets like Georgia. It is the congestion on Georgia that is the real problem and that existed before the bike lanes. Even if there was more green time to turn onto Georgia, it would not matter as they often can’t turn onto Georgia due to backed up traffic. What actually might help is reversing the signals at Georgia and have the bikes and peds cross Georgia before the vehicles turn right. This would allow more time for vehicles to clear the Georgia Howe intersection giving vehicles space to turn onto Georgia.
Brian and Richard – These all sound like good ideas to put into the mix. My impression was that the bike lanes implementation was so rushed that not a lot of thought could be put into creative design. They didn’t have “bike” signal lenses for the first few months, for example. So there may not have been time to “finesse” the design and signal operation. They were also implemented as a “pilot” with staff directed to “continue to refine configuration and operation of the lanes, including intersection operations.” So, if they are considered to be successful, more funds presumably might get allocated to make them work a bit better as they are made permanent.
Back to the specifics, having the bike/through/ped signal lead the right-turn signal probably isn’t a good option since pedestrian observance of the flashing don’t walk is generally poor. Maybe there is no good way to get the right-turning cars to the right of the bike lane at the intersection, especially when physical barriers are involved due to the potential of trucks turning, but I’m not sure if it’s even been explored. The right-turn lane after the crossing of the bike lane might not need to be very long to give better performance than the existing condition, where it seems no more than four or five cars can turn each pause. Anyway, it would be good to see some options looked at now that the lanes are in and City staff don’t have to worry so much about space-to-space combat over lost parking stalls.
Related: Creative traffic control seems so much easier in much of Europe where traffic signals are placed at the stop line, not on the far side of the intersection where they are visible to road users going in opposing directions, leading to potential confusion and “expectancy” as motorists predict when their phase will come up based on what they see of the others. The North American practice also has big aesthetic impacts in cities (Vancouver, very notably) that blitz intersections with very large, bright-yellow signal heads. I’ve never seen anything written about why the practices diverged, it would be interesting to know.
The map is strong evidence of a new divide in Vancouver politics. Its no longer east vs. west. It is north vs. south with 12th ave as the dividing line. This is also, generally, the dividing line between a density of less than ten dwelling units per gross acre (inclusive of street space) and more than ten dwelling units per acre.
Gordon,
Thanks for this analysis. You have nailed it. Your points represent exactly how I feel about the NPA campaign. I couldn’t stand the tone of their campaign, how they mocked and trivialized Vision’s food security initiatives and attacked the bike lanes. But, I also knew from months ago that I wasn’t going to vote for any NPA candidates. The sensational nonsense posts in the City Caucus blog cost NPA not only votes from their supporters, but also from people like me who wanted to see a diverse representation on the Council but couldn’t bring myself to even get to know their candidates. I somewhat regret that I didn’t get to know people like Sean Bickerton. That was partly the fault of their campaign and I learned a lesson too.