Calgary's Purple Rain

Underdog candidate Naheed Nenshi's campaign surprised many, but the young Muslim academic is the new mayor of Cowtown.

The political landscape of Calgary shifted last night, at least superficially, when the city became the first major Canadian municipality to elect a Muslim mayor. Today the op-ed pages are filled with the regular post-election congratulations, and a few surprised reactions that Naheed Nenshi actually beat more recognizable candidates Ric McIver and Barbara Higgins.

“The frontrunners came down to a nine-year city councilor with a small business background … the trusted, spunky TV anchorwoman who Calgarians had relied on for the last 21 years. And then there was the guy who, up until a few months ago, almost no one in the city had ever heard of,” writes the National Post’s Kevin Libin. “That guy won.” Although Nenshi is a fresh face, Libin says his “ideas were hardly revolutionary.” In fact, his plan to cut spending at City Hall and turn Calgary into a world-class city is basically what every mayoral candidate everywhere, ever has promised to do.

The Calgary Herald sounds positively jazzed that the city’s “in for an exciting new era led by a smart 38-year-old who knows finance … has strong ideas for organizational change” and whose “vigour is contagious.” It’s kind of a weird thing to say for a paper that supported another candidate. Let’s hope the editors don’t trip running to catch up with that bandwagon.

The “white-bread Cowtown of the 1970s, where mayoralty bids were engineered over clinking Scotch tumblers in the Calgary Petroleum Club, has embraced ethnic diversity driven by Twitter-tweeting youth,” declares the Post’s Don Martin. Yes the city’s looking a little less like the Calgary of old today, but still no plans to scrap the rodeos and hockey riots.

The Calgary Sun ordains it a “great day for Calgary” but makes the perennial plea heard every municipal election. With “a cumbersome field of 15 candidates for mayor … Maybe it is time to beef up the requirements for filing nomination papers to weed out the fringe candidates from what should be a more serious process.” What gives, Sun editors? The founder of the Canadian Liberated Urban Chicken Klub doesn’t deserve a shot?