Calgary-Buffalo Liberal MLA Kent Hehr is running for Mayor of Calgary.
From the Calgary Sun:
“I looked around and saw the cast of characters and I couldn’t support any of them,” says Kent, a man not known for playing pretty with the lingo, who thinks it is time someone who has not been on city council takes a crack at calming the craziness downtown. “Council is broken. For better or for worse, council has become a dysfunctional place in the eyes of Calgarians. What they’re doing right now, when a decision is made, is most of them are running outside to quickly call members of the press and throw someone under the bus.”
“It’s now a culture of who are we going to blame for this decision so we can save our own hide and score a few political points.”
Kent says he’s been fielding offers of support in the last month from individuals fed up with the near-toxic atmosphere in the big blue playpen.
The MLA says he’ll continue to represent his riding but will soon have more details on what he will do in the last couple months of the campaign.
In a March 2010 post, I reportered that Mr. Hehr had been meeting with organizers from retiring Mayor Dave Bronconnier’s past campaigns.
7 replies on “kent’s in.”
Win or lose, he’ll have to resign his seat at some point prior to the election. Can someone more familiar with Calgary give us the background info on Mr Hehr’s riding? What did the last few elections look like numbers wise? Assuming Ed waits the full length of time prior to calling a by-election, which party(s) have a shot in this area? Could we see another Wild Rose Alliance by-election victory, or is this area a definite Liberal stronghold? Any chance for a PC to pull off a very needed win for Ed?
Any early names in the mix for candidates from various parties?
Calgary Buffalo swings between the Liberals and PCs. With a decent candidate the Liberals can eek out a 500 vote victory, esp. if there is any sort of PC/WAP split. However all bets are off if WAP leader Smith runs. She would get so much soft media coverage that a WAP victory would be likely. In any case the premier will put off calling a by-election for as long as possible.
There is a complete history of Calgary-Buffalo at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calgary-Buffalo
I can’t see Hehr defeating Ric McIver
It appears that Hehr has no intention of resigning his legislative seat for the mayoral race. Considering how Diane Colley-Urquhart fared when she tried to keep one foot in the aldermans seat and put on out for an MLA’s seat, it is surprising that Hehr is going to try and double dip. Hehr was present in that by-election and should know better.
Hehr had better win the mayoral race (unlikely) as the voters in Calgary Buffalo will likely not be very amused having essentially lost their provincial representation for 1/2 year while Hehr tries to upgrade his political status.
The extreme ideologue Smith wouldn’t have a hope in hell in Hehr’s riding. Neither do the PCs. It will easily go Liberal again.
His campaign is being run at Taxpayer’s expense and I highly resent that. If he were honorable, he would resign his seat so his constituents could start the process of re-representation. And QUIT sending out advertising under the guise of “keeping my constituents informed”.
I agree with other posters. The honorable move here would be for Mr Hehr to resign his seat as MLA as soon possible. The Calgary media will likely feast on this double dipping for as long as he carries it on. It just doesn’t make good sense for himself or the Liberals (who one assumes he cares about).