Jon Lord – Absentee Candidate – Absentee Mayor?

So on my drive to work this morning I was listening to CBC's Calgary Eyeopener when they interviewed Calgary Mayoral candidate Jon Lord. Now Jon's a former alderman and MLA and has the dubious honour of being a Conservative candidate who's lost an election to a Liberal in Alberta. Now Jon's running for mayor since, based on his interview, the city is too busy spending money on services for citizens and not enough time lowering his taxes.

What was unusual about the interview is that it was done by phone. Not that being interviewed by phone is unusual, but that it had be be done by phone from Kansas City where he's competing in a BBQ competition. That's right, a man who wants to be mayor is to busy to campaign because he has to grill some meat in another country. It just happens that he'll be missing a debate in the process, but that's not really the issue as he could have skipped the debate like Conservatives do and still be around to campaign. As it is, he's not even around to door knock during a campaign period that he's known about for three years.

Now you think that if you want a job, sticking around for the interview (which is what the campaign is) would be a good idea. If most of us skipped an interview due to a "prior commitment", there's no way we'd be getting that job. Jon doesn't think that way apparently, though one wonders if he hires people for his company if they skip the interview due to prior commitments.

Now Lord tried to spin his way out if it by saying he sticks to his commitments and that by going to the competition shows this. Unfortunately at best all it shows is that Lord can't prioritize; at worst it shows that Jon's commitment to his buddies is more important than a commitment to the citizens of Calgary.

In terms of setting priorities, Lord has set being mayor at a lower priority than being at a BBQ competition (prestigious as it is). This begs the question, what if something Jon's committed to outside of his job as mayor gets in the way of being mayor? His actions show that he obviously puts his commitment to his pals above his commitment to the citizenry. Not a good quality in a mayor (or employee for that matter). Would Lord drop everything and return to Calgary if an emergency arose? Hard to say if he's committed to something else when it happens.

Worst case is that it's not even a prioritizing issue, but that Jon's commitment to his pals is more important than his commitment to the citizens of Calgary. This means we need to take a really close look at his donor list (which we can't, since he hasn't posted it) as his commitment to whatever special interests his buddies represent is going to be more important than his commitment to be a mayor for the whole city.

So we have a candidate for mayor who can't prioritize his life. If the BBQ competition is so important, then Jon Lord shouldn't have run for mayor. Conversely if he were serious about running for mayor, then he should have bowed out of the competition. He did neither of these things and leaves us with a demonstration of his inability to properly prioritize. He is showing that he is in no way ready to be mayor of a city of over a million.