Despite tours that took him from Medicine Hat to Slave Lake and a solid web and social media presence, Coun. Len Bracko finished well back of the top three in the election for senators-in-waiting.
The unofficial results posted on the Elections Alberta website show Bracko in eighth place with five per cent of votes cast. Conservative candidates Doug Black, Scott Tannas and Mike Shaikh took the top three spots and will sit as Alberta’s senators-in-waiting.
“I had a great campaign team and we had a great campaign, but the party politics took priority in the campaign,” Bracko said.
Bracko, who has served as an MLA and currently sits as a city councillor, ran as an independent, which meant he had no war chests or party machinery working for him. All three PC candidates had the full backing of their party, while the Wildrose candidates travelled on leader Danielle Smith’s bus.
Bracko estimates he spent approximately $21,000 on his campaign, most of it out of his own pocket.
“It’s always difficult,” Bracko said. “I had just kind of hoped with the closeness between the two parties [PC and Wildrose], I thought it’s possible to sneak up the middle.”
Education and publicity of the race overall was another factor, Bracko said, since the actual senate vote didn’t receive as much publicity as the general election.
“I think, for the most part, it was the best-kept secret. It wasn’t publicized by the government and many people were just confused when they came to the ballot box, so there needs to be more communication and education about the senate race. I was probably the only one who did any education.”
The only poll Bracko won outright was the St. Albert constituency, according to the Elections Alberta website. He finished with an unofficial total of 130,179 votes.
Besides travelling from southern Alberta up to parts further north, and not missing a single council meeting in the process, Bracko relied heavily on social media such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as his website to increase his profile. He said his website had more than 600,000 hits.
“I think we ran one of the best campaigns with the money we spent. Our signage was definitely No. 1 in the province and our social media was one of the best.
Regardless of the result, Bracko said it was a great experience.
“If you don’t try, you’re never going to get anywhere.”
