The election notebook

this diary has been organised for your convenience,
latest scribblings up first, the diary has been split for entries in October and September
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Dear diary
Date what happened today
Sunday 12th November The last day before the big one! Saw two candidates working today and lots of signs being repaired. All I can say is good luck and we're stuck with the results, no double punching or Bush whining for us. All we can do is ask for another pencil. Oh, if any candidates wish to recycle their sign stakes I can buy them cheap, lets recycle, drop them off at 315 Division St. I'd especially like winners' stakes, maybe the luck will rub off. Just think the sign that held Bob Spooner could hold Ben Burd!!!
I'll be at the counting at Victoria Hall to ask you all good questions and I promise not to put you on the spot about economic development or Walmart.
Saturday 11th November The fourth sign count: same as last week, almost Chalovich 24 Delanty 53. The analysis is that on this same route (Maplewood, Coverdale, Abbott Blvd, King St, Westwood) the numbers haven't changed much in three weeks. What is it stalled momentum or just fatigue, I sense a feeling of "let's get this over and done with!"
Rememberence Day today we'll see who turns up for the parade, since it is a Saturday.
OK here are my picks, I intend to "plump my vote". "Plumping" is the process of voting for less than a full slate. It makes your vote more powerful because you deny the people you do not vote for higher numbers.
The full slate .... My predictions of a Winner
Mayor Chalovich But only if her "little old ladies" come out to vote
Dep Mayor Spooner The only gamble here would be on the number of votes John Duda gets
Council Gail Deveau This is the order of appearance
John Floyd
Dean McCaughey
Pam Jackson
Bill MacDonald
My Slate: the one I will vote for
Mayor Chalovich In a contest where there is no difference in ideology, style or language and the drive is personal ambition my choice is dictated by my 'comfort zone' and that means Joan gets my vote before Peter.
Dep Mayor Spooner no contest
Council John Floyd The only one showing bombast and originality, it doesn't hurt that he knows what he is talking about!
Steven McCahon The only person to say that perhaps Walmart is not such a good idea at Strathy Road

I have composed a page of slates for your amusement, just remember they were assembled by a bunch of people sitting around with alcohol in their system!! here It should be noted that if you are using a 640 x 400 or 800 x 600 resolution on your monitor the pics may not be as good as you would like, but then neither were the conditions that they were created in.
Friday 10th November The final pie contest results here
3 days to go. I hope that the weather holds, it will give all the people who haven't been banging on doors a feeling of "well I'd better do something today". 
I hear that John Floyd had people stacked up to talk to him last night, at the ACM at the Mall. I hope they stood back a bit otherwise their eardrums would be ringing. John does tend to speak loudly, often and non-stop!.
This will be short. I am working on the "picks" as I promised I would be telling you all my slate will be released tomorrow, In fact I am working on more than one: the new slate, the old slate, the weight slate, the gender slate, the Cobourg slate, the age slate, and any more that you or I can think of. Had another letter from James Loken, he wants to talk about a favourite topic of mine, campaign financing here
Wednesday 8th November I have received a bit of mail today. One about the CHUC "pie contest". For those who don't know this is a United Way fundraiser and each pie maker, who must be a candidate in the municipal election, asks to come on the radio and sells the apple pie that they have baked. The results to date are listed here. The list of the buyers is interesting all kinds of conjecture and suspected motive exists when you know who bought the pie! I guess the smart candidates line up their buyers beforehand or else CHUC rescues them with a $10 bid (is that the Dave Hughes of CHUC that purchased George Chandler's pie?). Moving on someone else sent me a list of slogans that they had been inspired to write after reading a couple of the ones on the paper that is being pushed by the candidates. Read it here. Having read these slogans makes me wonder what the candidates would have said if the phrases "economic development", "Downtown revitalisation" "The CAUSE report" and "The Harbourfront" "Train Whistles" were expunged from our vocabulary. I challenge any candidate to write a brochure without using any of these clichés and buzzwords. Either that or hold the next All Candidates' Meeting in a licensed establishment and whenever the offending words are heard we all take a drink! Do you think we would end up sober?
A note to candidates: your pamphlets are getting put in with the junk. I know that if I had paid 9 cents a pop for leaflet delivery and then discovered, as I did that they were tucked inside a "Bentley" booklet I would be some ticked. Good money wasted by bad delivery! Still those pamphlets belonged to people I would not want to see on Council, but I thought I would mention it.
Just a note, if any body is driving past my house and sees campaign signs on my lawn they probably reflect my wife's preferences, I am not publishing mine until Saturday....you will see them here. Hey endorsements don't mean much As I noted before they are fun, but not very effective. The Northumberland News endorsed me in 1994 for the Mayor's job. look what good it did.
Tuesday 7th November The last week of the campaign! Reports from the trenches indicate that there is some movement out there and the candidates who are hitting the doors are gaining ground, so get out there. I have still only received paper from half of the candidates. I guess now that the N'land News is here tonight with only Uncle Bob's flyer that means the rest are probably going to be tangled with the Canadian Tire and M&M flyers on friday. 
Now it can be told. Last week the Chalovich camp was perturbed enough to think about the impartiality of the Gord Ley "Money Hour", because the host and question writer were known supporters of Mr D., to think about not appearing. However good sense prevailed and listeners tell me that Mayor Joan more than held her own, even though Mr Delanty persists in the fiction that two companies have leapfrogged Cobourg of favour of other places. Just remember Cobourg never had a chance for either of those plants for various reasons. Well the shock of it! Walmart will be delayed - by the developer. Royal Cobourg is pissed about the secondary plan, they may even appeal it themselves. Royal Cobourg wants the restriction of the building size, contained in one of the disputed shopping zone, taken out. So you see folks Royal Cobourg is prepared to sacrifice Walmart in the name of more profits. As some of us have said for months Walmart can go anywhere but to maximize profit Royal Cobourg wants it at Strathy Road and everybody knows it. Last night we even heard both council and the developer talk about a "Power centre". So much for a standalone Walmart. I'll  put dollars to donuts Andrew Pelletier of WalMart has told Mr. Wong of First Professional, "Call me when you have it sorted out!"
Anyway the big decision at Council last night was the decision to allow the PUC to ask for a raise. Why do we have to have a rate increase when the Town of Cobourg will be taking $600,000 from the PUC in the form of dividends? BTW $600,000 = the 2% raise. Do any of the candidates understand what is going on here?
Sunday 5th November Took a day off yesterday, I figured it was such a nice day that the candidates should do all the work. I have no reports saying that candidates were bumping into each other so I will assume that either the Town is big enough that nobody was treading on anybody else's toes or that there very few of you out! I'll be kind and believe the former. Anyway just to demonstrate democracy in my house I drove my wife to go shopping out of town. I asked, "would you be going to WalMart today if there there was on in Cobourg?" "No, she replied I would still go the Walmart in Belleville because I want to get out of the house!" For the sake of our downtown I hope nobody in Peterborough, Belleville or Oshawa thinks like that when 'WalMart Cobourg' opens in three years time.
Back to the campaign:
The results of the sign spotting very little difference this week which means that the sign campaigns of both mayoralty candidates have stalled. 56:25 Delanty/Chalovich compared with 52:28 last week. All I have heard this week is complaints about the sign vandalism. All candidates are affected, even the Delanty sign from Gil Brocanier's house was missing this morning. Has Gil soured or have the vandals  been striking? There is a delicious tale about a council candidate. A famous Carpet man on Hwy 2 was irate yesterday as he came across a Lloyd Williams sign sprouting in his flower planter. "Lloyd, putting a sign in the flower bed won't make it grow, or make Russell very happy!" And stories of signs from all candidates being placed on lawns without permission continue to be told. No names, no Cockerill but will the candidates please smarten up.
I have only received flyers from two candidates up to now I guess we should be inundated this week pity, all those flyers together, it just makes the junk mail pile higher.
Finally I notice that the Delanty webmaster is telling all that they hit the 1000 hit mark this week, this site hit 1000 last week and is still climbing.
I may take a day off tomorrow, as my own campaign starts this week and I appear on CJBQ tomorrow morning from 9 to 11 AM 800, and then speak at a candidates lunch for the Campbellford Rotary. I may 'brownbag it' as they want to charge me $11 for lunch. Cheeky sods, they want to listen they should at least pay for lunch!
But I will be back on Tuesday with all the teary eyed backslapping remarks of the last meeting of the present council. Quite frankly this day can't come soon enough for a lot of the voters. I don't care what the Deputy Mayor says tomorrow night I still think he's a buffoon who mangles the english language and he's doing us all a favour by not running, although he is depriving the populace of not re-electing him. Still it will be interesting to see what his swansong will be!
Friday 3rd November The day after the All Candidates' Meeting. The main impression from the people I spoke to was disillusionment. "What; is that All?" The big winner last night JOHN FLOYD. I can't go into details (reflections here) because everybody said the same thing and therefor there are no details. But I will say Joan blew it because she took the high road. When you're in the ditch it doesn't matter what road you take you won't get out unless you reach for a life line. Mr Delanty's comments about her record last week should have been refuted hard. The campaign experts I have spoken to feel that the turning point of this campaign was going to be the opportunity to speak about Mr Delanty's interpretation of the last three years.
Thursday 2nd November Again a slack day for a break sneak a peek at this page, famous people's houses and the signs on their lawns. (here) On another topic the radio station the radio station CHUC ( i'll expect a donation for mentioning your station Don!!) is holding a 'pie contest' to raise money for the United Way. The way it works is that all candidates have the opportunity to go on the air for up to 15 mins to sell their apple pies. Now this is where the fun starts. How does one candidate make their pie sound better than the others and will the rich candidates buy their way into publicity? For instance if the candidate with the largest campaign war chest or who has the richest friends raise a lot of money how will the unknown candidates feel? As well, I just have the fear that Billy M's auction might not be so attractive "Hi folks we have a pie from your hearty candidate Bill MacDonald bring it on in. Where is it Bill?" "Oh I got a bit hungry on the way over, but the pie dish is an antique: bid on that!" Will the good Liberal's pies be made of Red Delicious apples or will Dean McCaughey ask to bake a blueberry pie? Oh a good writer could have lots of fun with this scenario.
Wednesday 1st November The day after Halloween shows three smashed pumpkins (isn't that a name of a rock group?) and little damage done to signs. Billy M's signs have taken more damage than the others, hard to tell whether that was halloween damage or just sloppy maintenance. I noticed that the big McCAughey sign at the five corners was missing this morning, perhaps somebody had finally objected to the bad grammar "Elect Dean McCaughey FOR Cobourg Council" mixing For and To is a grade eight mistake. The grammarians amongst us have been demanding better syntax than that displayed on this sign.
Spoke to a couple of candidates who having been pounding the doors pretty seriously. Reports indicate that the electorate is cranky, dislike intensely the present council and want Walmart. Don't worry folks this council will give you Walmart: next Monday. Those seeking re-election see this vote as the ticket to City Hall. So to all the defenders of the OP out there, who might have been encouraged by the week's delay (that was really only for appearance's sake) , the official plan is going to be sacrificed on the altar of the ballot.
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