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LaPointe Blames Loss on Vision's Negative Blitz and Media 'Animus'

Writing in Maclean's, ex-editor says biased former employees a factor in defeat.

David Beers 21 Nov 2014TheTyee.ca

David Beers is executive editor of The Tyee.

Defeated Non-Partisan Association mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe has written his own account of his run for office published online by Maclean's magazine.

LaPointe says he was a political newcomer "without an ideological agenda" and "not beholden to anyone" who was close to eclipsing Vision Vancouver incumbent Gregor Robertson until his opponents launched an "utterly negative" onslaught of emails and phone calls in the last five days of the race.

The article starts with LaPointe laying out the less-than-transparent manner in which he was recruited to run.

"In mid-March, over lunch, a friend asked my opinion on Vancouver politics and Mayor Gregor Robertson. I wasn't impressed with him, I said, but I didn't know who might run against him in November for the Non-Partisan Association (NPA).

"'Well, what about you?' he asked.

"'Right,' I replied sarcastically/dismissively.

"'No,' he said, 'I'm here on behalf of the NPA to see if you'd let your name stand.'

"I half-expected him to point to the hidden camera and say I'd been punked.

"The selection process was unusual and glacial, like a lengthy executive recruitment. Two defeats and divisive internal politics led the NPA to conclude it would best select candidates through a committee and the board. No open nomination meeting, no personal fundraising or spending, and central command for safety's sake."

After meeting NPA president and top financial backer Peter Armstrong six times, writes LaPointe, "we developed a rapport to keep me in the hunt for the job. We kept a pact: I wanted certain things for the city, I didn't have an ideological agenda, I wouldn't inherit one and I mustn't be beholden to anyone."

Divisions and bridges

Why did LaPointe want to lead B.C.'s largest city? "I had spent a 35-year journalism career seeking answers and now could provide some. I had been a journalist to further the public good and strengthen the community, so this was a big but logical step."

LaPointe saw a road to victory by identifying divisions among citizens, and being seen to "bridge the divided camps."

"Under [Robertson], the city grew more divided between motorists and cyclists, resource sector and green sector, owners and renters, private and public, and neighbourhood groups and those who develop the city. The success of Robertson's Vision Vancouver party had much to do with mobilizing the latter of each and suppressing the former... Vancouver cannot be governed from anywhere but the middle, and that requires a brokered smorgasbord of policies and participants."

LaPointe says that despite his admittedly "fuzzy" presentation to the NPA board, a "week or so later… I was in a boardroom with the confirmation of my candidacy for mayor."

On the campaign trail, writes LaPointe, "I spent too much time talking like a journalist and too little like an advertiser. Campaigns call for short sentences… and for repetition."

'Some animus'

While LaPointe concludes that "overall" the media treated him fairly, he says the kinds of newsrooms he once ran are too decimated to have adequately conveyed his platform with 75 policy proposals that he says were "largely" his own. "There weren't enough mainstream media to sustain coverage seven days a week and all summer."

He also charges bias: "I think that some animus from former employees crept into the coverage without ample declaration of personal conflict."

Who might LaPointe be speaking of?

The Tyee emailed journalists who covered the election -- the Globe and Mail's Frances Bula and Gary Mason, the Vancouver Sun's Jeff Lee and Pete McMartin, and the Tyee's Doug Ward, all of whom worked under LaPointe when he was managing editor of the Vancouver Sun.

McMartin replied by citing columns where he'd been both complimentary and critical of LaPointe's campaign and noted that he'd let readers know "I'd worked with the guy." Lee, too, said he'd been balanced in his coverage and said LaPointe has assured him he wasn't speaking of Lee. The other three reporters did not comment by publication time.

Asked to name whose coverage was slanted by "animus" towards him, LaPointe declined.

LaPointe sums up his Maclean's piece with a hint that he may stay involved with NPA politics:

"It is possible we didn't so much lose as we ran out of time, but it is more likely that we didn't have the right combination of ideas and machinery. This time."

Read the entire piece here.  [Tyee]

Read more: Municipal Politics, Media

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