Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday November 11, 2006
2006 Mayoral Race
Of the seven candidates in Hamilton’s mayoral race, fully five are fringe, leaving only Mayor Larry Di Ianni and Fred Eisenberger in the credible mainstream. Steve Leach is so fringe, he’s out of sight. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has even clapped eyes on him during the campaign.
Martin Zuliniak and Michael Baldasaro are clearly in the contest for attention-getting laughs. Though, to be fair to Baldasaro, who is making his sixth run at the mayor’s chair, over the years he’s learned to temper his low satire with off-kilter but witty political commentary.
The remaining two candidates are also peripheral players, but in a slightly different way. Both Diane Elms and Gino Speziale are visible enough and take themselves seriously indeed. But there’s no depth beneath the political platitudes they sprinkle like fish food.
They have no campaign organizations to speak of, no identifiable support base, no comprehensive platforms and policy positions. Elms and Speziale give the impression their thin playbooks are based on movies where populist rhetoric is enough to sway voters rather than substance and a real understanding of how things work. (Source: Hamilton spectator)