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Poll mixes parties, political roles in Barrie

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In Barrie
Apr 24th, 2014
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By Laurie Watt Barrie Advance

When Darcy Murray was called for an automated poll last Thursday, he hung up because the question just didn’t make sense.

Funded by the campaign to re-elect Mayor Jeff Lehman, the automated poll asks voters if they’d vote for Lehman over MP Patrick Brown, Coun. Alex Nuttall and former MPP Joe Tascona.

“To me, it just confuses people. It was a silly survey,” said Murray, who canvassed for Lehman in 2010 and who is also involved with the local New Democrats.

“Most people don’t pay attention to what’s going on in an election campaign. I said, ‘This is silly’ and hung up.”

Lehman is the lone Liberal in the mix of candidates cited in the poll. The rest are Conservatives.

“There were people on Twitter suggesting it was a Conservative robocall,” said Brown, who’d been given a heads-up about the poll by Lehman’s campaign manager Quito Maggi.

Brown said he’s had a lot of people calling his constituency office about the poll, asking if he’s running for mayor. He told Lehman about the confusion.

“Jeff told me not to worry, he’d tell everyone it was his campaign. Some people thought I was testing the waters (to run for mayor),” the MP said.

Maggi said the poll, which yielded 1,000 responses, was done to better understand name recognition.

“Both Alex (Nuttall) and Patrick (Brown) are very well known in Barrie from being on council. I wanted to poll as strong as possible,” he said.

“For the people who know Barrie politics, I’m sure it’s possible it was confusing. We often poll with the strongest name possible. Patrick Brown is the strongest possible name in Barrie.”

Nuttall said it was a compliment to be included in the poll, although he doesn’t have plans to run again municipally.

“I’m flattered that the mayor sees me in the same league,” he said. “No, I have no desire or will I be putting my name forward for mayor in the City of Barrie. At this point, I’m still finalizing plans, but I do hope to maintain a public service role.”

He added he received 20 to 30 emails and social media messages about the poll and his plans.

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