By Pepper Parr
July 27, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON
The campaign has begun for the federal Liberals in Burlington.
Mile Wallace was a happy camper when he retrained his seat during the xxx election. There was a lot of Tory Blue on that map.
Mike Wallace, the Conservative incumbent faces Liberal Karina Gould who opened her campaign office on Saturday and Dan Laird who has been nominated for the New Democrats.
The opening of a campaign office is for the party faithful – a time to cheer the candidate and tell the troops that now is the time to buckle down and slog through the next 90 + days and win the election.
The candidate speaks and tells her team why they are running for public office and what matters to them.
Gould sees herself this far ahead of the other guy. Could be – far too early to tell.
Karina Gould is running in her first campaign. She is young, articulate, very well educated and has an open face and engages with people easily.
There are always the political zingers aimed at the other candidates during these partisan events and Gould has acquired the ability to aim her arrows. There will be a local debate – it could be something to watch.
“Their advertising about Justin seems to be focused on his hair: said Gould “Is that all they’ve got” she responded. Her audience loved it.
Gould told the story of going door to door and talking to people – “many told me they would vote Liberal but didn’t want to put a sign on their lawns because most of her neighbours were Conservatives.
“This happened at a lot of doors” explained Gould. “When I got to the end of the street I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted out – You’re all Liberals”. It is of course quite possible that all those people were just wanting to be polite and not hurt the woman’s feelings.
And that of course is the hope for the Liberal campaign in Burlington. Can they do what provincial MP Eleanor McMahon did when she took the seat as a Liberal after more than 70 years of Conservative rule?
Time will tell.
“I’ve never cut a ribbon before” said Liberal candidate Karina Gould when she opened her campaign office.
Gould did point to a significant issue that affects everyone and that is the rules that are now in place to be able to cast a ballot on election day.
The Gazette will report on these new rules in a separate article.
For the Liberals in Burlington it is now “game on”. The first of the pre-writ debates will take place August 6th – the Liberals plan on projecting the debate on a wall and making it a “movie” night. No mention was made of any popcorn.
