Nasty, Nasty

The race for city council in our ward just got ugly.

A former supporter of Incumbent is supporting MyCandidate this time. At a public debate last week, he asked for the financial reporting of a public charity that Incumbent is a director of, co-signed a mortgage for the purchase of a building and now has his community office there, and which only spends 15% of its revenue on community projects. The only traceable charitable donation was $100 to the Cancer Society. Their revenue from bingo was over $60,000.

This man used to an executive member of the charity, but because he was disillusioned by the conduct of his fellow board members, he resigned and switched support in this election.

The newspaper picked up this story and plastered the article on its front page the day of the all candidates debate this week.

This debate was organized by the local government-funded area improvement group that likes to keep its meetings secret to keep the public out. The chair bashed the mayor for not taking part in the debate. Not exactly an impartial host.

Questions from the floor were raised about Incumbent's involvement with the charity organization. He refused to answer questions and accused MyCandidate of being behind a smear campaign.

The next day, the newspaper reported on the debate and quoted Incumbent's accusation. In the streets, we saw many of MyCandidate's signs with her face spray painted black, those of another rival were knocked down. But Incumbent's signs remained intact.

As I travelled around with MyCandidate, she said, My signs are staying up because they are expensive. We are reporting every expense and people need to see the work of Incumbent's supporters.

At MyCandidate's office, a volunteer was training someone to do phone canvassing. I heard her tell the trainee, Do not accept money donations from businesses or unions. If they want to help, they can volunteer time. We need to keep this campaign clean and not create any expectation of indebtedness. We only accept money donations from individuals.

A woman at one of the doors we knocked on attacked MyCandidate for running for office when she has children at home. Her attack was thorough and hostile. MyCandidate held up and offered reasons for why she's running, though I would have liked to pull her away sooner. But it took a while for MyCandidate to realize the attack was rehearsed. I wasn't at the door with her at the time. So now I vow to stay with MyCandidate at the door when I canvass with her.