’Paper candidate’ explains Facebook fumble
A software consultant running for the Green party in Port Moody-Coquitlam said he was inaccurately branded as a “paper candidate” after he mistakenly posted on Facebook what was meant to be a private message to a friend.
Don Barthel later deleted the post, but not before political rivals had made it go viral.
“I’m not expected to actively campaign,” he had written. “I’m really just there so that the B.C. Greens have someone on the ballot.
“That remark was kind of a self-deprecating remark by myself, referring to myself as a paper candidate,” said Barthel, a 50-year-old married father of three teens who lives in Vancouver. “I was responding to a friend who was all emphatic about my candidacy and asking to help.”
Barthel said he clicked on an emailed Facebook notification to reply to his friend’s message, not realizing his response would be posted on Facebook. He laughed when the irony was pointed out to him, of a software developer not being clear on how Facebook worked: “Therein lies the lesson. I didn’t read the fine print that said respond to this email to post your remarks.”
Barthel insisted he’s campaigning seriously in the provincial election against Liberal incumbent Linda Reimer and New Democrat challenger Rick Glumac, a Port Moody city councillor. Barthel said he was at an all-candidates meeting Tuesday in the riding, and has agreed so far to attend two more debates.
“My campaign plan is to do mostly door-knocking and the all-candidate meetings,” Barthel said.
The first-time candidate said he was prompted to run for the Greens by his opposition to the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion, adding that in his home riding of Vancouver-Langara, the party already had a strong candidate in former school trustee Janet Fraser.
He noted that Port Moody-Coquitlam is a long shot for the Greens, who drew less that 10 per cent of the votes cast in the 2013 election. Reimer won that election with a two-per-cent edge over her NDP challenger.
The Greens also drew flak last month for their choice of a candidate in Richmond South Centre, United Church Minister Greg Powell, who lives in Castlegar and plans to run most of his campaign from there on social media.