VanRamblings will start off today’s column where we’ll write about Progress Vancouver Mayoral candidate Mark Allan Marissen, this way …
We like, respect and admire Mark Marissen, a graduate of Carleton University, with a Bachelor’s degree in political science, a senior advisor to the McMillan Vantage Policy Group, creator of the YES Vancouver civic party which ran Hector Bremner as their Mayoral candidate in 2018, father to a young man, now a university student, named Hamish Marissen-Clark — yes, it’s true that once upon a time, Mark and former Premier Christy Clark were (happily, lovingly and productively, one would have to say) married to one another, and remain friends to this day (no mean feat that in this time of distressed former couples … good for them, we say!).
VanRamblings knows Mark Marissen to be a man with a gregarious and welcoming nature, we also know him to be a consensus builder (a prerequisite for being our next Mayor, we’d say) of the first order, who works well and productively with others for the public good, that Mark is politically astute, and a social progressive whom we much admire, that Mark is intimately familiar with governance, and knows all about the hard work which goes into governing successfully, effectively, and in the interests of the people he serves (read: you, me and all of us).
VanRamblings also believes that were Mark Marissen to become Mayor of our beloved city by the ocean come October 15th, that he would well represent the interests of our city, municipally, as well as provincially and federally.
Why, then, in the headline of today’s column are we so ungenerously referring to Mark as an “also-ran” candidate to become Vancouver’s next Mayor?
In a poll released by Quito Maggi’s Mainstreet Research at the beginning of the month, Mark appeared to be in a tight three way race for Mayor with incumbent Mayor Kennedy Stewart and sitting Vancouver City Councillor, Colleen Hardwick.
To which we say: poppycock, balderdash, bilge, blarney and nonsense.
When the poll was released, the response of the political class in our town was: the poll constituted dirty politics, and was nothing more than a Marissen push poll.
According to Wikipedia, “a push poll is an interactive marketing technique, most commonly employed during political campaigning, in which an individual attempts to manipulate prospective voters’ views under the guise of conducting an opinion poll. Potential voters are contacted with little effort made to collect and analyze voters’ response data. Instead, the push poll is a form of telemarketing-based propaganda and rumour mongering, masquerading as an opinion poll. Push polls may rely on innuendo, or information gleaned from opposition research on the political opponent of the interests behind the poll.
Push polls are viewed as a form of negative campaigning. In all such polls, the pollster asks leading questions or suggestive questions that “push” the interviewee toward adopting a favourable response toward a particular political candidate.”
Now, we’re not saying to a certainty that the August 2nd Mainstreet poll was necessarily a push poll, but when Vancouver’s political class and punditry all but dismiss the poll, one is left wondering about the integrity of such a poll, one that is so at odds with the internal polling conducted by the other Mayoral candidate parties.
Most municipal election polling that the various civic parties are conducting on a regular basis have Mayor Kennedy Stewart, Councillor Colleen Hardwick and ABC Vancouver’s Ken Sim in a tight three-way to become Vancouver’s next Mayor, all but tied at around 23%, with the Non-Partisan Association at 11%, and Mark at 8%.
As we write above, in 2018 Mark Marissen was involved in the creation of the now defunct YES Vancouver municipal party. With the handsomely high profile Vancouver City Councillor Hector Bremner as Yes Vancouver’s standard bearer, Mr. Bremner managed a mere 9,924 votes and 5.73% of the ballots that were cast.
For the average low information Vancouver voter, VanRamblings believes Mark Marissen possesses much lower name recognition with Vancouver voters than was the case with Hector Bremner last time around, while running an oddly lackadaisical campaign for office thus far — only in this past week announcing 5 candidates for Vancouver City Council (with the rather high profile Morgane Oger strangely missing from the party’s updates page — note should be made that, thus far in the 2022 election cycle, the Progress Vancouver website has no candidates page).
VanRamblings is also more than a little concerned about Mark Marissen’s development industry backers and their potentially unholy influence on Mark as Mayor, Mark’s support of both the egregious greenhouse gas emitting massive tower build that defines Vancouver’s recently passed Broadway Plan, and it’s neighbourhood destroying, city-wide parent plan, the godawful, equally egregious Vancouver Plan, causing VanRamblings grievous concern, as it should all Vancouver voters.
Not registering with voters, an oddly lackadaisical campaign, general in the basement internal polling results, too close ties to Vancouver’s development industry, although Mark Marissen may be a fine fellow, in 2022 Mark Marissen’s candidacy for Mayor can be seen as nothing more than a blip on the political radar in our city.
And. now this: the invisible Mayoral candidate for Vancouver’s oldest municipal party, the NPA, having held office in our city for 45 of the past 85 years.
On Monday, VanRamblings was informed by sources within the NPA that 2018 Vancouver First Mayoral candidate Fred Harding would be announced as the NPA’s new mayoral candidate (to which news, VanRamblings guffawed), replacing the dearly departed John Coupar (still alive and kicking, by the way), who was unceremoniously pushed out of the “what were they thinking?” party earlier this month.
But apparently not. Mr. Harding seems no longer to be the NPA Mayoral candidate.
Alas.
According to former NPA City Councillor George Affleck, and part-time CKNW talk show host; owner of Curve Communications; loving dad and hubbie, and all around good guy; co-founder of The Orca political website, and co-host of The Orca’s Unspun podcast — with VanRamblings’ Kitsilano neighbour + part-time CKNW talk show host, and all around incredibly accomplished woman and broadcaster — who should be celebrated far and wide — we’re talking about Jody Vance (whoops, got lost there), Mr. Affleck announcing on Twitter yesterday …
I hear rumours the @NPAVancouver will soon announce their new mayoral candidate. Kennedy Stewart will be preparing his happy dance post announcement. Ken Sim and Colleen Hardwick … not so much.
Oh #vanpoli … you crazy town. pic.twitter.com/eX3GwoBH0W— George Affleck (@george_affleck) August 18, 2022
Gosh, this political game. I tell ya. Not for the faint of heart.
VanRamblings is giving serious consideration to publishing a column on Saturday, a reflection on our very strange first week back writing on this website publishing columns on Vancouver’s civic parties and Mayoral candidates, and how we seem to have made those within all five (and we do mean all) of Vancouver’s municipal political parties that we’ve set about to write this week unusually angry.
Perspective. VanRamblings likes what former Vision Vancouver Executive Director Stepan Vdovine told us one day, when Vision was in its heyday, and after VanRamblings had published a particularly nasty column taking Vision to task. When we queried Stepan about his response to that particular column …
Stepan replied: “You’re a gnat. We don’t give what you write any consideration.”
Operatives in all 10 of Vancouver’s rambunctious and oh-so-sensitive civic parties would be wise to take the learned Mr. Vdovine’s approach to what is written on VanRamblings into account, not get yourselves into a dither, and so darn rattled.
Just sayin’ …
