User:Mwalcoff/Sample article about party candidates

Note: This is a sample article demonstrating a proposed style for articles on a party's candidates in a particular election. If this were a real article, it would be titled, Progressive Party candidates, Yukon legislative elections, 2006. In this sample article, terms that would be linked are simply underlined. See User:Mwalcoff/Candidates and elections for the style guide.

The Progressive Party is running 15 candidates in the 2006 Yukon legislative elections.

Dawson City

Joe Blow, a schoolteacher at Dawson City High School, is running for the Progressives in this riding. Blow finished second to Yukon Party incumbent Jane Doe in the 2003 territorial elections and third in the 2001 federal election. He won the nomination by acclamation at a constituency-association meeting Feb. 26.

Blow has been active in the local environmental community. He has spoken against the proposed Sasquatch Uranium Mine in the media and at public forums. In a March 5 debate on CFYK-TV, he accused Doe of being "a stooge of southern mining interests," a remark that nearly caused a riot in the studio.

In addition to Blow and Doe, Janice Roe of the NDP and independant Steve Crow are also seeking the Dawson City seat.

Klondike West

Main article: Dusty Simpson

Ebenezer "Dusty" Simpson of Stewart, the leader of the party, began his tenure in the legislature in 1994. In 2003, he succeeded Xenia Parsons as Progressive leader. Some pundits had floated his name as a potential candidate in the federal Progressive party's leadership race, but Simpson chose to stay in Yukon and try to win election as premier.

Simpson keeps a high profile in Yukon, regularly criticizing the current government for what he claims are tax givaways to the rich, insufficient education budgets and dangerous environmental policies. In the legislature, though, he works closely with members of other parties on committee matters [1]. Yukon Party advertisements have tried to paint Simpson as a dangerous left-wing extremist.

Klondike West is considered a safe seat for the Progressives [2]. Simpson won 75% of the vote in 2004, and the NDP and Yukon Party are putting up only token opposition this year.

Northern Lights

Main article: Adlet Tootega

Adlet Tootega, the Progressive critic for Aboriginal affairs, is running for re-election in the sparsely populated Northern Lights riding. A tour guide in the off-season, Tootega was first elected to the legislature in 1999 and was re-elected in 2002 and 2004. In the last election, Tootega defeated NDP candidate Connie Dickenson by 64 votes. Tootega's wife, Frances, is mayor of Old Crow.

Gordon Kensington of the Yukon Party and Jan Novak of the NDP are the other candidates in the Northern Lights riding.

Whitehorse East

Whitehorse businesswoman Irene Quincy is taking on NDP Agriculture Minister Kermit Lincoln in the Whitehorse East riding. Quincy's February nomination was hotly disputed, with an opposing Progressive faction threatening legal action [3]. Quincy is considered to be on the right wing of the Progressive Party and, as president of the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce in 2003, criticized the Yukon Party government as "insufficiently pro-business." But Quincy told the Whitehorse Nugget in March she "fully supports the Progressive platform."

Besides Quincy and Lincoln, Green Party candidate Kim Ho Park and independent Flipper Saunders are seeking the Whitehorse East seat.

Whitehorse South

Main article: Bernie Ralston

Former MP Bernie Ralston is the biggest star candidate on the Progressives' ticket this year. A former National Hockey League star, Ralston represented Yukon in Ottawa from 1996 to 2003, when he chose not to run for re-election. He now says he misses politics and believes serving in the territorial government would "allow him to serve the people of Whitehorse without keeping me away from my family." [4]

Ralston is running against incumbent Irv Cheney, the minister of education, who began his tenure in the legislature in 1996. Cheney has won re-election by at least 20% of the vote in every election since then, but this is the first time he has faced such well-known opposition.

Ralston's 2006 campaign got off to a rough start when a campaign brochure identified his opponent as "Dick Cheney" [5]. (Ralston says it was a mistake.) However, Ralston's has benefitted from campaign appearances from former colleagues, including Wayne Gretzky.

The only other candidate in this riding is "Smokin'" Joe Brazier of the Marijuana Party of Yukon