If you ever went to an announcement of a person seeking the nomination for a particular party in a particular riding, you will get your best view from the back of the room where  you can  watch all of the power brokers at work.

 

The announcement that Cameron Stolz will seek the nomination for the seat being vacated by Jay Hill was no exception.

 

Stolz, the young freshman Councillor with stars in his eyes, stood in front of a group that (not unlike any other group  trying to get its candidate elected) likes to control the agenda from behind the scenes.

 

In many cases this comes from a single or several failed attempts of getting themselves either nominated or elected.

 

The Commonwealth Group was amply represented. You may recall it was Stolz that wanted to toss into the  garbage can  the  study that concluded tax holidays for the down town of 15-20-or 25 years be avoided.

 

The main group looking for those tax breaks at the time came from the Downtown Business Improvement Association which  has a Board  heavily weighted by  people from the Commonwealth group of companies.  It was a company under the Commonwealth banner which had purchased the old Casino, and a substantial part of the 400 block of George St.

 

That effort failed to get any traction and the study was accepted as a good recommendation.

 

 

Former Mayor Colin Kinsley was also in the fold, he was apparently asked about whether he wanted to seek the nomination.

 

In addition, looking around the room there were a lot of people there either looking,  as I was, to see who the players are, or were there hoping to catch the eye of the candidate should he be sucessfull.

 

That begs the question, can Stolz carry the mail?  

 

The three candidates seeking the job (sorry "nomination" because if you get the nomination you get the job) from the north already have a leg up, they are connected with the party which has its power base in the area north of the Pine Pass.

 

While the manner in which the candidate handles himself is important in these things (and Stolz does not possess the speaking skills of the other three) memberships are what its all about. Of course keeping in mind that in many cases while you may have sold the membership,  at the meeting the tables can suddenly be turned. Just ask John Brink who had the memberships in the bag only to discover that the people he thought were on his side voted for the other guy or in this case, "gal".

 

Now we should all keep in mind that whoever gets the nod will have to be the party in waiting. Stephen Harper will call the shot as to when the election will take place and that could be as far away as two years, which might explain the reason why Blair Leckstrom did not take the plunge, at least, not yet.

 

That lag time can mean a long time away from business or in the case of the folks in the north away from school without a pay check and you can’t claim EI.

 

The good news is of course that if you can wait it out and you have the horses, there is a pot of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow.