Voting: the mayor

Well after studying the voting papers and the accompanying literature as well as consulting the entrails, I have decided to give my vote for Gary Moore even though he can be a jerk at times. The alternatives and my reasons for not supporting them are:

Blair Anderson: Mild Greens. No way do I want to waste my vote on a legalize pot dope. Even his blurb makes no sense. What on earth is one meant to make of the following?

There is duty of care supporting equitable advocacy and concern for minority stakeholders in our social order. Evidence is core in the contest of ideas.

The governance and politics of the vices that underpin civil society. Prostitution, Gambling, Alcohol and Smoke Free are obvious ones but so to is illicit drug policy.

The first sentence is pretentious waffle, the second uses "core" bizarrely while the the third is simply incomplete. The blah blah blah of the vices that blah blah what? As for the remainder, I find the reasoning behind the sentences deranged. Prostitution is a vice, gambling is a vice and alcohol is a vice. However tobacco and other drugs aren't vices but the efforts to control them are! It could just be that Blair cut too many words out of his blurb before the election officials would print it but then it may just be that he should lay of the dope while writing campaign material in the future.

Kyle Chapman: National Front. We all know he's a skinhead but his blurb, which I must remark is more readable than Anderson's makes hardly any mention of what he really believes. The closest is the following sentence:

I want to show the youth that there are better things to strive for in life

Undoubtedly this involves dressing up in paramilitary uniforms and jackboots, full-armed salutes, chants of "Hail Kyle" and beating up asians?

Jamie Gough: Our Christchurch - Our Pride. This jerk is full of himself. Not only is he too young to stop using anti-acne medication but his blurb states that he is descended from a wealthy family, that he was educated at Medbury and Christ College, that he's swotting for a pilot's license and that he's writing for some obscure magazine.

Michael Hansen: Economic Euthenic An eccentric that has been campaigning for as long as I can remember. His most famous promise was to ensure that Santa visit kids four times a year. His blurb is some daft rates proposal but the following sentence gives a gist of what he's like:

The use of a stingray, and a tingleray at election meetings and a very hot ray which can pass through walls is not acceptable, candidates should have the use of a Council car.

Aaron Keown: Independent Makes a reasonable blurb and there's nothing to suggest that he's a nutter or even odd. However I think he would have to make a name for himself on the council before he can seriously aspire to the mayoralty.

Sam Kingi: Anti-Captialist AllianceHis blurb starts as a amassive tour-de-force:

The ruling rich of the world are currently waging two wars. One is against the masses of the Third World, for instance through the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The other is against workers at home, through holding down our wages and attacking our overall living standards and rights.

Workers need to unite across boundaries of nation, race, gender and sexuality and fight for our rights as workers here and around the world. In NZ, we should support our fellow workers overseas fighting Western occupation and plunder of their countries and we should fight lay-offs and unemployment, low pay and all forms of inequality here in this country.

The poor sod's so deluded that he thinks Al-Qai'da, the Taliban and Ansur-i-Islam are manifestations of the third world working class which we should unite with. But I wonder why he bothers distinguishing between gender and sexuality?

Bob Nimmo Another independant. The blurb is too much about himself and not about his policies or intentions. I should add that since he has something to say about himself, he doesn't come across as wretchedly narcissistic as Jamie Gough.

Paul Telfer: U-ACT Another eccentric but this time with a bit of a nasty streak. He tried to pass himself of as an affliliate of Pauline Hanson's One Nation party at the last mayoral elections and was involved in a punch-up of sorts.

Annalucia Vermunt: Communist League Our perennial communist candidate returns but I do wonder why she was not able to run as part of the Anti-Capitalist Alliance? Looking at her blurb, I see that she that she has more concrete proposals than the Anti-Capitalists
such as:

I support worker's rights to organise unions.
[...]
I back efforts to unite working people to fight for: Jobs for all - For a massive public works programme; Support Maori rights to foreshore and seabed; Stop immigration deportations; Fight police brutality; Defend a woman's right to choose abortion; Debt relief for working farmers.

Ordinary people could agree with some of these proposals if they weren't aware that she was running as a communist. Has somebody ever suggested that running as a crypto-communist might get her more votes? Other proposals are slightly out-of-touch such as debt relief for working farmers because farmers aren't heavily indebted and they aren't a major voting block for the Christchurch City. But she does mix her semi-credible proposals with downright loopiness such as:

I oppose US and NZ military interventions against the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq. Hands of Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan.
I oppose Washington's and Wellington's drive to prevent Iran and north Korea developing needed energy sources.
[...]
I'm for a workers and farmers government that will abolish capitalism in NZ and join in the worldwide struggle for Socialism.

Last time around she was ranting against our involvement in East Timor and Bosnia so she does make the effort to keep up with current affairs. But I do want to know why she considers that Iran, a major oil producer, needs to develop nuclear power.