Tories need to advertise

As I was reading todays Globe and Mail I noted an interesting little tidbit in Jane Taber's Ottawa Notebook. It would appear that the Conservative riding association in New Westminister-Coquitlam-Port Moody have to advertise to find someone to run for them. Now the president of the Tory riding association says that they're not hard up for a candidate and that taking out the ads is the "usual practice".

This would be easy to believe if the Tories hadn't been busy the past couple of months forcing candidates on ridings. In fact, from what's been reported, free and open nomination meetings is not the usual practice. One gets the impression that the party head office in Ottawa couldn't find someone to parachute into the riding and the riding executive, without marching orders were somewhat aghast as to what to do next. With no candidate from on high, the scramble to nominate someone was on. What's interesting is that apparently there are no people within the partythat were willing to run for the party.

Have Tory fortunes in Vancouver sunk so low that none of their members are willing to go through the hassle of a nomination? Or is it that the available members' have too much baggage to run? Perhaps the riding association is so disorganized it didn't think to ask it's own members if anyone wanted to run. There could be a more sinister reason as well, that the party, given it's rash of non-democratic nomination processes elsewhere in the country, wants to give the air of democracy in one riding so they can point to this riding and say "there, see, it's all democratic", though never ascribe to malice what can be adequately described with stupidity. Whatever the reason it is unusual for a political party to advertise for a candidate.

It would be interesting to hear if any other Tory riding associations have done so, or if the lighting nomination call is the standard for the country.