The Mayoral Forum Dilemma: Which Group to Offend Tonight?

Lacking body doubles — or triples — the candidates must often choose between conflicting events.
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There were no scheduling conflicts at the first forum of the campaign. | Photo by Patrick Kerkstra.

There were no scheduling conflicts at the first forum of the campaign. | Photo by Patrick Kerkstra.

This morning, Citified highlighted an Inquirer story about a sparsely attended (by the candidates) mayoral forum centered on the question of poverty and hosted by Sister Mary Scullion, of Project Home.

Scullion was angered by the lack of candidates at Project HOME’s event, which was attended by about 400 people. The Inquirer wrote:

“There’s a huge turnout here today,” she said, as people hooted, “and it’s very disappointing that at the beginning of this forum, there are just two candidates here.”

But the missing candidates weren’t at the spa. They weren’t even making fundraising calls or writing policy papers. They were at another mayoral forum, talking to another constituency, which surely was equally irritated at the candidates — Jim Kenney chief among them — that did not turn up for their event.

The candidates’ general willingness to attend as many of them as humanly possible has created an impression among event organizers that any no-show is an insult. There are a lot of organizations in this city, and a lot of constituencies worthy of the candidates’ time. Sometimes — a lot of times, actually — those organizations don’t coordinate event schedules.

Most of the time, the absence of a candidate isn’t an insult. It’s a matter of physics: one candidate, one place, at one time.

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