Carole - Just Do It!

Of course, Carole Taylor would run - and win handily - as an independent candidate for City Mayor.

First, she would have to do that because of the incredible botch-up by the NPA. Almost every one of the NPA movers and shakers with whom I have spoken in recent months detest - yes, that's right, detest - Mr. Sullivan.

Like so many Vancouverites, they saw quickly through The Nutty One's sham presentation to his selfish core. They have found him to be an embarrassment and, as we say in Shakespeare, they wish him gone.

But being Back Room Boys, slithering amongst the shadows of the Mahogany Tables and Leather Divans, they lack the fibre to simply tell the poor fella to move on.

"Hey Sam, you've had fun and your day in the sun, now quietly go somewhere and make some money and let us find a real Mayor who actually knows how to work with people and accomplish real things for a real city."

No. That conversation is not going to happen, although this is the stuff the NPA Movers and Shakers dream of in their restless sleep.

Second, she will have no trouble distancing herself from His Pettiness and doing so gracefully.

Miro Cernetig tells us this morning that "For weeks, Taylor has avoided the mayor's entreaties for a meeting."

What's so surprising about that?

His own staff won't meet with him.

The mayor calls a meeting and key players refuse to show.

Why?

Because they know - and by now, you and I and all of Retro Vancouver knows - that the mayor is doctrinaire, frozen and incapable of communication and conciliation. He gets something passing for an idea in his head and there it sits, never to be lodged or even gently nudged to the right or left by any reasonable argument or consideration.

The wheelchair long ago lost its emotive power.

At a wedding last summer, a total stranger, a very, very, very successful realtor turned to me over dinner and said apropos of absolutely nothing, "I think Sam Sullivan is evil!" The table applauded.

At a fundraiser lunch at a swanky hotel last month, a total stranger, a very successful banker, turned to me as Sam was about to make another fatuous speech and said, "When this guy was first elected, I thought we could be proud as a city because we chose a guy in a wheelchair. But pretty soon I saw how self-involved he was and how it's All About Sam. He's useless."

The real tragedy here is that Sullivan is the head of the worst council in living memory.

If Carole Taylor were to mount a campaign called The New Slate and fill it with real candidates - people with some idea of how government works and what the city needs to get busy doing - she and they would win hands down and clean house entirely.

The NPA, Vision and Cope have all had their day and it is costing us mightily.

How much we ache for real councillors with smarts and knowledge and wit.

The Boob Show must go.