Ric McIver leaves a voting booth after casting his ballot in Calgary's mayoral election on Oct. 18.
While many Calgarians are crowing over their decision to welcome political newcomer Naheed Nenshi to the mayor's chair, others are wondering what the heck happened.
Until a week ago, the front-runner was Ric McIver, a 52-year-old council veteran, Conservative insider, cost-cutter and populist candidate who had capitalized on anger directed at outgoing mayor Dave (Bronco) Bronconnier.
Mr. McIver had a campaign dream team that included some of the people who helped Stephen Harper land the country's top job.
Sam Armstrong and Devin Iversen, who scripted Mr. McIver's election play, are experts at identifying target voters, figuring out what makes them tick and getting them to the polling station. They were helped informally by Tom Flanagan, Mr. Harper's former chief of staff.
Mr. Harper and several of those around him congratulated Mr. Nenshi on Tuesday, but at least one Conservative MP admitted he was not feeling particularly celebratory the day after the vote.
Rob Anders, the Conservative MP for Calgary West, calls Mr. Nenshi the "Obama of Alberta," and he doesn't mean that in a good way.
"I think what Calgarians are going to find is they will be very surprised at just how Liberal their new mayor is," said Mr. Anders, who has known Mr. Nenshi since high school.
"I think that it's a very successful coalition-building exercise. Obviously, he was able to pick up Liberals and students and did very well in northeast Calgary. I think that if he pursues an activist agenda to try to push the city to the left of centre, he'll probably alienate himself."
Mr. Iversen, on the other hand, says there was little distance between Mr. Nenshi's policies and those of Mr. McIver. Even Barb Higgins, the other major contender, was offering a similar platform, he said.
"So it's a little tough to characterize it as a left-right battle," Mr. Iversen said.
He blames a strong desire for change among Calgarians for his candidate's defeat. Although Mr. McIver had been "a clear and consistent opponent" of Mr. Bronconnier, he was a member of the previous council, which had become a target of voter anger.
People who had not followed city council closely "were receptive to the line that they all had to go," Mr. Iversen said.
Mr. Nenshi also benefited by being underestimated until the later part of the campaign.
"We saw him coming up the ranks. … And over the last week it was quite impressive to see," Mr. Iversen said. "But nobody laid a glove on Nenshi because nobody really believed, until it was kind of too late, that he had the horsepower to catch up."