Candidate bloggers – the good, the bad, the absent

If it’s true that you can tell the character of a person by his political blog (and who says it’s true), I’m not sure what to take from what’s going on in blogland in the wake of last Saturday’s civic election in Kamloops.

At this writing, I see nothing at all on the Milobar For Mayor blog acknowledging his win and thanking his supporters, campaign workers and volunteers.

Murphy Kennedy, the second-place finisher, graciously congratulates all concerned, including Brian Alexander. He writes, in part, “And congratulations to Brian Alexander on his run for Mayor. I got to know Brian over the past few months and enjoyed our time together at the forums. I wish you much success in the future, Brian. Maybe we can get together some time for a coffee and debrief.”

Alexander doesn’t return the favour, instead reverting to regular form and carping about how it was everybody else’s fault that he didn’t do better. The election was poorly organized, the forums were poorly organized, etc. etc.

For a few days, it seemed as though Alexander might actually stop being just another very angry man and learn to talk without using several four-letter words in every sentence. But no, the Brian Alexander we knew is back.

Defeated councillor Arjun Singh is trying to take things in stride, congratulating the winners and looking ahead. But he will, he says, try to figure out what went wrong: “One of (the) things I want to do is to analyze why I did not get re-elected. This will be a project that will take its time, and a lot of stuff will be best guesses.”

Meanwhile, Chad Moats, who quit as Kennedy’s campaign manager part way through, has been silent for quite some time. We’re waiting for the continuation of his series on his experiences.

Bill McQuarrie, a first-time council candidate, uses his blog to thank everyone for a “fantastic experience.”

Looking around for blog postings by other local candidates, I’m not finding much. It seems there’s a mixture of those who accept defeat or victory graciously, those who don’t, and those who are more than a little slack in sending out the appropriate acknowledgements.