{"id":38877,"date":"2017-10-17T15:00:54","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T21:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=38877"},"modified":"2017-10-17T15:00:54","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T21:00:54","slug":"smith-thinking-over-his-political-future-after-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2017\/10\/17\/smith-thinking-over-his-political-future-after-defeat\/","title":{"rendered":"Smith thinking over his political future after defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"

M<\/span>ayoral candidate Bill Smith may not be finished with politics just yet.<\/p>\n

S<\/span>mith lost his battle with incumbent Naheed Nenshi Oct. 16, taking 169,367 votes to 199,122 for the victor.<\/p>\n

But Smith, who had been the favourite according to some opinion polls, prior to the vote, told his supporters in his concession speech that he planned to think things over.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to hang out with my wife and kids over the next little bit,\u201d Smith told the crowd at his campaign headquarters at The Garage in Eau Claire Market.<\/p>\n

Smith also said that now is the time for Calgarians to rally behind their mayor and continue pushing for what the city needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [voters] made their choice and it was a hard-fought battle,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a lot of issues at stake and clearly Calgarians made their voices heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that he believed his campaign had thoroughly discussed many different issues but suggested that voters may not have been \u201cactually paying attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we were pretty clear on what we were going to do,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

The crowd at The Garage kept the faith, as the long evening wait for results went on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need change,\u201d Carolina Oxtoby,\u00a0president, and CEO at Heritage Pointe Properties Inc.,\u00a0said early in the evening as the votes were just coming in.<\/p>\n

Oxtoby said she felt Nenshi had stagnated in office and become complacent in his role as the leader of Calgary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only relationship that should last more than two terms is a marriage,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the world changes, I believe that our political leaders need to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sentiment was echoed by Cal Wenzel, a well-known Calgary developer who chose to support Bill Smith after he met him personally.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe met with him about three months ago, and I even had my wife sitting in on the interview because women are more perceptive of people, and when he walked away after an hour she said, \u2018 I really like him,’\u201d Wenzel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like him too, I think he\u2019s a good honest individual and I think he will do a real good job,\u201d said Wenzel, prior to the final results being posted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not near the end of the night yet,\u201d Derek Fildebrandt, MLA of Strathmore-Brooks, said about an hour before Smith acknowledged defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of months ago people didn\u2019t think it would be a very competitive race\u2026 the fact that it\u2019s competitive says a lot, there\u2019s a lot of people itching for change.<\/p>\n

The only relationship that should last more than two terms is a marriage. \u2013Carolina Oxtoby<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI want to see more fiscal responsibility on city council,\u201d said Fildebrandt, who was dropped by the United Conservative Party last summer after questions arose about his MLA expenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalgary is the biggest city in Alberta. It\u2019s one of the two major centres of the economy, culture and power in the province and what happens here matters everywhere in Alberta.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regarding his future, Smith said he hasn\u2019t decided what will come next but will take some time for himself. [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":452,"featured_media":38879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-image","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-city","8":"category-news","9":"post_format-post-format-image"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/452"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38877"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38898,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38877\/revisions\/38898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}