5 posts tagged “mayor”

These politicians sure do stick together: the Governor of California endorsing the former Mayor of Carmel.

The Los Angeles Times believes San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is considering exploring running for California’s governor when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s term finishes in 2010. Gov Schwarzenegger cannot run again due to his state’s term limits.
   Gavin—the fiancé of a friend of mine, and whom I had some dealings with when he was first elected (more specifically, our staffs dealt with one another)—is probably ideal from the Democratic side of things and could score a lot of votes on the coastal counties. Inland, I am less sure.
   Right now I say his profile is the highest of the likely rivals, even compared with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in Los Angeles.
   I know from many of our mutual friends that Gavin has considered running for the Governor’s office for years, though this is one of the few public articles about this ambition.
   I may not agree with all his policies but I believe he is faithful to his principles. And living in a place that has universal healthcare, I like the fact that Gavin has given that to the people of San Francisco.

From the Murdoch Press, not a good start for London mayor-elect Boris Johnson:

Boris Johnson got off on the wrong foot with staff at the Conservative Party’s headquarters after barring them from his victory party. …
   Only MPs, donors and a tiny number of political strategists were said to have been allowed to attend. One source said: “It is a kick in the teeth for all the workers. The party chiefs deserve a good hiding for it.”

   But it certainly was a good day for the Tories in the local elections. Daniel Finkelstein, in the same newspaper, wrote:

Gordon Brown is hardly the first to experience a bad night of results. Most leaders have had one of those. And there is a standard procedure. You pass round to your people in the studios a list of your triumphs and the failures of the other party. Every time the presenter mentions your terrible results in, say, Wales, you can say “but David Cameron has failed to break through in the North/cities/rural areas (delete as applicable) and only did a little bit better than Iain Duncan Smith in 2002.” …
   But as for reading out their own triumphs and the failures of others, this was made difficult by the fact that, er, there weren’t any. That much became clear at about 2am when it emerged that Cameron’s Tories had taken Bury.

   Labour is blaming its leader, says Mary Ann Sieghart, though I do not agree with her headline:

They may not always have liked what Tony Blair did, but at least they knew why he was doing it. Nobody ever complained of his weak leadership. With Mr Brown, they don’t understand why he does what he does—why abolish the 10p tax band if it was intended to help the poor?—and he is notably bad at either listening to their concerns or using charm and persuasiveness to win them and the voters over. Instead, he barks at his critics, denies the facts and even makes up some of his own. Yesterday, on the Today programme, he claimed to have taken a million children out of poverty, when the actual figure is 600,000. Inflation is hitting not only food and oil these days.

   No prizes for predicting the next General Election outcome.

Kerry Prendergast is back as mayor here in Wellington for a third and final term, according to the Fairfax Press:

She won 21,603 votes, with her closest rival Ray Ahipene-Mercer on 10,700, a majority of 10,903—an increase on her 2004 winning margin. Third place went to Bryan Pepperell with 9915 votes.

I wish her well for this term and hope that some of the grander initiatives for innovation and the environment are seen through. The 2010 election will be a tricky one: the start of a new decade and with it, new expectations. It will also be a free-for-all when Kerry steps down.

A question to Canadian New Zealanders, especially older ones who might get the reference: is the Hubbards (or, in my world, Hubbard’s) cereal Clipboard newsletter our equivalent of your Royal Bank Letter? In such a case, it should have its own ode, copyrighted to yours truly.

I open a box of Hubbards
And plough through the cereal,
I come to the bottom of box,
The chunks ever ethereal,

But one thing stands upright
As I pour the last bits out:
It’s the Clipboard from Hubbards!
What is it all about?

Bits of advice
And puzzles to play,
Marketing the brand
Through stories to relay.

It’s all the brand-building
An Auckland mayor needs:
An image of common sense
Never mind the good deeds.

But literature it is not
Though at the end of the flick,
You think back to warm fuzziness
And the man they call Dick.