Just when you thought the civic election campaign silly season was about to start Prime Minister Harper brings on the specter of a federal election. What that means for all our wannabe civic politicians is that the exposure window just got whole lot tighter and definitely way smaller.

Like it or not, name recognition drives voting decisions in a municipal campaign, and with our federal politicos cashed up and ready to hit the campaign trail the doors to paid and free publicity are quickly closing – at least in the September and mid-October time window.

If I’m a no-name Upper Delbrook citizen contemplating a run at a seat on council, I can practically say goodbye to any free publicity as the feds gear up their campaign machines. Even our local press is going to be far more discerning when it comes to handing out headlines for each candidate’s campaign launch, let alone giving some ink to that brilliantly penned press release decrying council’s lack of concern regarding “dog’s running amok off-leash in Upper Delbrook.”

Let’s face it, 90 per cent of us don’t care what happens in the November elections for a seat on District or City council. So when eco-candidate John Sharpe decides to enter the race will he have any chance of bonking us out of our slumber and getting us to pay attention to his campaign message? In the 2005 campaign, Sharpe, along with two-time mayoral candidate Dave Sadler, Wendy Qureshi and Ernie Crist pulled out all the stops and unfurled a 100-foot banner bemoaning the sorry state of the North Shore’s sewage treatment facilities. The local press barely raised an eyebrow, let alone put it on the front page.

Now fast forward to 2008: a federal election campaign appears likely to usurp the media’s attention on our local civic politicians. Good candidates will get lost in the clutter, and the same names that rocked the vote three years ago will be the only ones we recognize come November 15.

So North Vancouver residents mark these names down in your election-day voting card (I don’t suspect many of you know the names of our currently District and City councilors, so the names of those who ran against them last time around are still a mystery to you):

COOK, DE LUCREZIA, KANIGAN, KROON, NAJIAN, PERFITT, SHAGHAGHI, UNGER, HUNTER, CROWE, BASSAM, JESSEN, QURESHI, KADERALI, KLASEN, SHARPE, ZAHEDI, MOLSON

Apologies if these names mean nothing to you, but some of these folks will be taking the leap again and attempt to get your attention over the next two and a half months – and then ask for your support on election day. Care to join me at taking aim at the dartboard?