Many of us are getting excited about the upcoming 2010 Calgary Municipal Election!  As a blogger I am finding that this election is going to be exciting due to the many different and interesting races that are shaping up across the city.  Taking a quick look at http://www.calgarydemocracy.ca/ you can see that there are some very interesting candidates that have come forward to contest many of the Aldermanic seats this year.  After reviewing a ton of the information, I notice that there is one ward that no one is really talking about….Ward 13!

 Ward 13 is has been represented by Diane Colley-Urquhart since they year 2000.  There is speculation that she is considering a run at the Mayor’s chair this year and while I am not sure if it is authorized or not, there is even a new twitter group called ‘Friends of Diane” pushing her to run for mayor.  The Twitter account states a tag line of ” Diane Colley-Urquhart has served Calgary as a great Alderman. Lets get her to be the next Mayor of Calgary!” and with 9 followers, I am not sure if this is the push they are looking for.  ( However, with the recent surge in “fake” twitter accounts, I am not sure if this is even from Diane’s group?)  So if Diane is considering a run at the top job, who will replace her in Ward 13?

 It would appear that nobody is even talking about this ward and I am at a loss as to why?  Usually, you will see the “sharks” circling at this type of opportunity to win a ward that may be potentially vacated by a powerful incumbent, but not this term?  I have not even heard any rumours about any candidates that were planning to run against Diane in the first place?  Perhaps most people feel that Diane has done such and excellent job that they cannot win against her?  Maybe they feel that they cannot raise the necessary funds or volunteers to compete with her longtime supporters and strong financial backing?  If you look at the history of Ward 13 elections, her popularity  ( 2 acclamation’s and a sound thumping of her two opponents in 2007!) is pretty obvious. 

 Either way, I am curious to see who will come out of the woodwork if and when she declares her Mayoral candidacy.  I think that any potential replacement candidates had better get to work on their community door knocking!  If she does step aside, perhaps this will be the ward to watch.  If not, I seriously doubt that she will get any serious challengers again. 

Interesting……

Your thoughts? 

Shane

This post was crossposted from www.calgaryrants.com