Calgary mayor’s brand can withstand Olympic bid loss: political observers
CALGARY — A week before Calgarians rejected another chance to hold the Winter Olympic Games, Mayor Naheed Nenshi, draped in a Team Canada scarf, stood before a rapt pro-bid crowd and made a passionate case for saying “Yes.”
Though his high-powered plea didn’t sway enough voters in Tuesday’s plebiscite, political observers say the three-term mayor should be able to weather the defeat politically.
“I don’t think it was a rejection of him,” Lori Williams, a political scientist with Mount Royal University, said Wednesday.
“In the main it was less about Mayor Nenshi — and even this city council — and more about the federal and provincial governments and … primarily about the (International Olympic Committee).”