Ken is running the best ground game of any candidate for Council in the 2018 Vancouver electoral campaign. A 2011 NPA Council candidate who fell just shy of attaining victory, the owner of the Dunbar Theatre is back with a vengeance in 2018. Ken’s team (and he has a team, a paid team of four people, out delivering signs, crunching the numbers, meeting with voters in the polls where Ken’s own internal polling indicates strong support — Dunbar, naturally, and a surprise to Mr. Charko, the West End, with the area north of the Cassiar connector solidly in the Ken Charko camp).
Ken Charko has acquired phone lists, and cell numbers of thousands of Vancouver voters likely to go to the polls. Each and every day, Ken phones and speaks (briefly) with 847 — must be his lucky number — voters on their cell phones, which development has led to dozens of calls from VanRamblings’ friends asking, “How did Ken Charko get my number?”
Will Ken’s numbers hold? As Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith might intone, “Don’t count Ken Charko out — he’s not to be underestimated.”
Melissa De Genova — who, for the record, we both respect and admire — will ride to victory on her City Council incumbency, while Colleen Hardwick looks to achieve victory on the coattails of her father Walter Hardwick’s name, Dr. Hardwick, a multi-term alderman in the 1960s and 1970s, and a distinguished and much-beloved academic and community leader whose work shaped both the Metro Vancouver region and the Fraser Valley.
VanRamblings was fortunate enough to work with Dr. Hardwick on The Livable Region Plan in the late 1980s, the published document responsible for shaping almost every aspect of urban life in our region.
And what of the straggly few challenging for the 10th spot on Council?
If you’ve read VanRamblings at all, you know we’re pulling for Christine Boyle and Derrick O’Keefe. On Monday, we will enthusiastically endorse Sarah Kirby-Yung (you think we gush over Christine Boyle? You ain’t read nuthin’ yet, til you read what we write about British Columbia’s nominally right-of-centre generational candidate & future British Columbia Premier).
Lately, VanRamblings has been thinking, “Omigosh, we’ll be despondent if Christine Boyle doesn’t attain a seat on Council,” and we will be verklempt because everything we’ve written about Ms. Boyle we believe into the deepest fibre of our being. Note to all: this ain’t our first rodeo.

Truth to tell, it is the possibility of a defeat for Sarah Kirby-Yung on the evening of Saturday, October 20th that would cause us the most concern, and bring us to tears. Christine Boyle will live on to fight another day, were she to lose. Sarah Kirby-Yung — the most important, action-oriented, democratic Park Board Chairperson in living memory — is on a mission to reform how right-of-centre parties respond to the needs and expectations of the electorate. Sarah Kirby-Yung is a once in a lifetime candidate.
Sarah Kirby-Yung’s victory at the polls in our current Vancouver civic election is critical to the future of British Columbia. John Horgan, David Eby and the NDP are not always going to be in power. If Ms. Kirby-Yung is to become a future Premier — we would note in passing, the polar opposite of Christy Clark — she must achieve victory next Saturday night (although, we suppose, she could run in the next provincial election — but, honestly, in order for her to realize her goal of leading the province, victory on the 20th would go a long ways towards becoming a future British Columbia Premier).
Believe me when I say, “You want Sarah Kirby-Yung as a BC Liberal Premier over any other candidate in the party, now and long into the future.”
Will the numbers hold as you see them at the top of today’s post hold?
Doubtful.
We’re holding out for victory for all three of our favourites in this election: Christine Boyle, Derrick O’Keefe and Sarah Kirby-Yung. Perhaps the electorate will come to their senses, tune into the election, and elect all three of these transformational candidates to City Council — although, truth to tell, Pete Fry must be included in this life-changing, must-elect group.

We are 7 days away from election day 2018, 7 days away from knowing who will comprise our next Vancouver City Council, Park Board and School Board. At this point, it’s anyone’s guess as to how things will turn out.
The Straight’s Charlie Smith wrote yesterday that he thinks there’ll be a decent, if not good turnout at the polls. We’re less sanguine about that possibility, particularly given the record low turnout at the advance polls.
Still, you never know what’s going to happen, when it comes to elections.
You know what they say, “A week in politics is a lifetime.”

Video credit. Eliot Galan. @collectivista

Derrick O’Keefe’s candidacy for Vancouver City Council represents the most heartening and principled candidacy in Vancouver civic politics since the rise of our city’s multi-term, cherished top vote-getter, Harry Rankin.
Over the years, new candidates have emerged on the political scene, barely gaining power at City Hall as they sought office, squeaking in by the narrowest of electoral margins, yet once in office going on to become our most beloved and venerated civic representatives.
In Vancouver, in 2011, Adriane Carr won elected office by a mere 909 vote margin, in an election where more than 135,000 votes were cast. In 2014, Councillor Carr topped the polls with more than 74,000 votes. Same thing in Seattle with socialist professor Kshama Sawant, squeaking to victory over incumbent Richard Conlin, running on a $15 an hour minimum wage platform, in 2013. One year later, as is the case with our very own Ms. Carr, residents of Metro Seattle and Washington state voted Kshama Sawant the Seattle region and Washington state’s most popular political figure.
VanRamblings has known committed community activist Derrick O’Keefe for 15 years, dating back to the early 2000s, when Derrick and his best friend, author and humourist Charlie Demers, emerged on Vancouver’s political scene with the boldly imagined Seven Oaks arts & politics magazine.
A well-considered, well-written and conceived activist academic journal, in every issue Seven Oaks laid out for its readers a road map for change, in order that working people would no longer get the short end of the stick. During its halycon years of publication, Seven Oaks was a much anticipated must-read each month for its legion of appreciative activist readers.
Derrick was recruited by Canadian feminist icon Judy Rebick to edit the online journal she had created, rabble.ca, with Derrick O’Keefe on the masthead as editor-in-chief, as always keeping his activism a fundamental aspect of how he brings himself to the world, as a peace activist, a renter’s and affordable housing activist, and one of Canada’s finest political writers (after leaving rabble.ca, Derrick co-founded and edited ricochet.ca, widely considered to this day to be Canada’s leading public interest journal).
Of course, as is the case with all activists of conscience, Derrick O’Keefe loves baseball. Sitting in the bleachers in Section 3 at Nat Bailey Stadium on a revivifying summer’s eve, his children and Andrea nearby, the warm breeze of the early evening wafting through the crowd, the feint scent of beer and popcorn in the air, baseball at The Nat is Derrick’s idea of heaven.

On a campaign that could, at times, tend towards the chilly (at least to some of us older folks), Danika was the smiling, organized, welcoming presence, 6am til midnight, seven days a week. VanRamblings didn’t see Danika break once (and we were in David’s campaign office ALL the time).
Late at night, in the dim light of early morning, we could see Danika organizing volunteer activities for the coming day, a beatific presence.
VanRamblings is unsure that we’ll ever see the likes of a Danika Skye Hammond on any political campaign on which we will work in the future, but migawd are we — every single person who worked with Danika — grateful that we were afforded the once in a lifetime opportunity to be inspired by and to work with Danika Skye Hammond in the spring of 2017.

What does all this palaver about Danika Skye Hammond have to do with the price of donuts, and the 2018 Vancouver civic election?
Listen up and listen tight.
At the outset of the 2018 Vancouver civic election, co-campaign managers on the OneCity Vancouver campaign, Deanna Ogle and Mary Leighton, called a meeting of the party’s candidates, part-time staff and volunteers, and members of the Board (who were instrumental in drafting a policy on campaign deportment), and instructed those who were gathered to …

“Be kind. Always be kind to one another. Be kind to the people you meet on the street when you’re out canvassing. Be kind to our fellow citizens who enter our office. Be kind when you’re delivering signs and dropping them off. Be kind, be especially kind, to the candidates running for office with political parties other than our own.”

“From the moment you begin work with our campaign of social justice and change for the better, from this moment on, you are a representative for the OneCity Vancouver campaign, from early morning til late at night. Support our very fine candidates for office. In a world of social media opprobrium, never seek to respond with bitterness, rather respond with reason and kindness, if at all. As a representative on the OneCity Vancouver campaign, from this moment on, it is incumbent on you to never, ever, ever, in any circumstance, or on any social media forum disparage any candidate running with a party that is not our own, anyone in the press, or any campaign volunteer on another party’s campaign.”

“For us, and for yourself, be your best self at all times.”

“And, please recognize that we are in an alliance with COPE, Vision Vancouver and the Greens — which means that always, always, always it is of critical importance that you remember that all of those candidates and persons who are working on the COPE, Vision and Green campaigns are our allies. We love, respect and honour their service to our community as we love our own families, and as we love one another.”

And you know what, even though they’re the “opposition” to the left-of-centre parties, Vancouver Non-Partisan Association campaign manager and VanRamblings’ good friend Patrick O’Connor, and his very fine campaign team of Wendy Hartley, John Manning and Mike Witherley gave near exact the same instruction as above to their party’s candidates and volunteers.
Vision Vancouver gave much the same speech to their candidates, and volunteers. And so did Mark Marrissen and Mike Wilson, on Hector Bremner’s Yes Vancouver campaign. Wai Young, too. All civic political parties but two have adhered to the campaign of kindness, personal responsibility and integrity political ethos in this civic election campaign.

Because, as anyone who has ever worked on a political campaign knows, campaign staff and volunteers never, ever, ever, under any circumstance or in any forum deride or disparage their “opponents” running for office in a campaign. To do so only serves to undermine the work that is undertaken by the campaign staff, the party’s Board of Directors, and the heart-filled volunteers of principle who often dedicate their every waking hour to helping achieve victory for the candidates whose candidacies they support.
And did we mention the Green Party of Vancouver’s campaign manager Ryan Clayton, and their absolutely superb and tremendously talented Director of Communications Alex Brunke? Well, as any person who has ever spent time around Green Party candidates for office, the members of their Board of Directors, and Ryan and Alex, in particular, know that the Green Party of Vancouver wrote the book on kindness in political campaigns.
You know how they say, ‘The meek shall inherit the Earth’? Well, VanRamblings wouldn’t exactly call the Green Party folks meek (cuz they’re activist persons of conscience), but we would call them principled, and kind, thoughtful and collaborative, and aim to do and be better, non-partisan change makers, as fine a group of folks as you’d ever want to meet.
Unfortunately, and very sad to say, there are two political parties whose candidates are seeking office in the 2018 Vancouver civic election where members of the paid campaign staff and volunteers (and in the case of one of the parties, candidates for the party) have gone online to disparage and name call and unwarrantedly, viciously attack candidates who have been endorsed, in one instance, by the Vancouver & District Labour Council, and with whose candidates and parties they are in an alliance. It is to weep.

Perhaps the most foul, acting out malefactor in the 2018 Vancouver civic election campaign — and that’s going some, considering who’s out there and what they’re doing — is a COPE operative, Samuel Holmes, who seems to derive great perverse pleasure and takes the greatest possible delight with ad hominem attacks on candidates in the COPE alliance, with the working press, and any other target of his mean-spiritedness, absolutely delighted in undermining the campaign of principle his party is running. Alas.

That such egregious conduct is extant among only some of the party’s high profile operatives only serves to undercut and undermine the very fine campaigns that their party’s candidates are running for office in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election — the very best campaign for office by their party in more than a generation, with the best grouping of candidates of principle we can recall seeking elected office dating back to the 1980s.
Yesterday, VanRamblings wrote that we were livid at the conduct of some campaign operatives in going after candidates, woman candidates in particular (which we consider to be woman-hating misogyny, or self-hating misogyny, as the case may be). We have expressed to campaign operatives how egregious and counterproductive to victory we find the conduct of the few miscreant operatives working on their party’s electoral campaign.
Most political parties would fire the campaign operatives who are acting out immediately, and disavow their conduct as contrary to the aims of their party during the election process. Unfortunately, those in decision-making positions with the one party to which we refer are not exactly known for integrity of purpose, intelligence and humanity — we hold out feint hope that those campaign operatives who are acting out will held to account.

The above said, VanRamblings is heartened that the vast majority of persons of conscience working on this party’s campaign, and all other 2018 Vancouver civic election campaigns, and most candidacies in Vancouver’s 2018 civic election, have conducted themselves with integrity of purpose, a sense of joy and community service, and an opportunity to learn, to engage, to be afforded time to get to know our community better, and better familiarize themselves with determinedly achieving the city we need.

Advance polls run today through October 17th — if you decide to cast your ballot early you choose one Mayoral candidate out of 21, & for City Council you’re to elect 10 Councillors, at Park Board there are 7 Commissioners to elect, and at School Board, 9 trustees. We’d ask that you please, please please keep yourself informed, and being partisan for just one moment, we’d ask that you please vote for the progressive candidates running for office in this year’s critical-to-our-future Vancouver municipal election.
Advance voting locations, October 10th – 17th, 8am til 8pm …

• Vancouver City Hall, 453 W 12th Avenue

• Roundhouse Arts & Rec Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews
• Britannia Community Services Centre, 1661 Napier Street
• Hastings Community Centre, 3096 East Hastings Street
• Renfrew Park Community Centre, 2929 East 22nd Avenue
• Killarney Community Centre, 6260 Killarney Street
• Trout Lake Community Centre, 3360 Victoria Drive
• Sunset Community Centre, 6810 Main Street
• Marpole | Oakridge Community Centre, 990 West 59th Avenue
• Kerrisdale Community Centre, 5851 West Boulevard
• Kitsilano War Memorial Community Centre, 2690 Larch Street
• West End Community Centre, 870 Denman Street

We’ll see you back tomorrow. Full VanRamblings election coverage is available here.