Those of you re-entering the Vancouver civic scene after a summer away will notice there is an election campaign underway. It is hard to say exactly when this activity started--perhaps as far back as when Gregor Robertson and his Vision colleagues trounced the NPA.

Since then the few fragments left of Vancouver's most successful civic party have been represented by opposition surrogates. Members of Sam Sullivan's staff who failed to even get their guy the party nomination have been barking in the blogosphere.

It is a matter of simple political fact that ever since our rookie mayor and his party took over they had nowhere to go but down. Once politicians move from vague promises to hard decisions they also start losing friends.

This has been a tough summer for Robertson. It started with his private comments made public thanks to an open mic about the "NPA hacks" who turned up at a public meeting to oppose Vision's STIR housing project designed to create market rental housing in the West End.

A story broke in the Courier 252 affordable housing units in the Olympic Village project. We learned that while housing is desperately needed, the process of renting those units was inexplicably stalled--costing the city revenue, to say nothing of the families who need a more secure place to live.

Then, in the midst of a story about vacant space at city hall and city departments spending a small fortune on rental facilities elsewhere, we were told about the mayor's plans to expand his office and build a dining room for councillors.

If that weren't enough, the exempt (non-union) staff leaked a memo including a survey expressing their fear and loathing of city manager Penny Ballem. While most reported bits of the memo dealt with complaints that Ballem tends to micro-manage and overwork staff, a careful reading of the document--all three "expectations" from its authors--tells you it is all about money and getting the same wage increases as the union staff.

But that's not what made the headlines.

For opponents of the mayor and his party it was an unparalleled feast.

So when a poll turned up this week from Justason Market Intelligence pointing out the mayor's approval rating was at 49 per cent, folks immediately recalled the last poll results from Vision's pollster Stratcom which pegged the mayor at 78 per cent and declared an explainable huge plunge in popularity. Oddly Barb Justason doesn't think so and here's why: The Stratcom poll included only decided voters in arriving at that figure. Justason included all folks polled including people who had no opinion. She says if she used the same formula as Stratcom, Robertson would come out at 69 per cent.

But regardless, she says, Robertson has an approval rating of two to one over those who disapprove of what he is doing. "I was impressed," she says.

But there are a couple of more points as we are in the midst of what is likely to be the longest election campaign in this city's history.

First, there is the remarkable strength of the NPA brand. An organization Justason describes as "leaderless and rudderless," one that at this point has no mayoral candidate and no party president (Michael Davis stepped down as president last week), can still pull 28 per cent of decided voters.

And while that puts the NPA more than 20 points behind Vision and where it was throughout the last election, the party ain't dead yet. The same can't be said for COPE at 13 per cent.

Finally there is this point about the poll. The same issues--homelessness, cycle lanes and even backyard chickens--that are causing Vision grief from its opposition are also drawing significant support from the majority of people polled, which is to say they are divisive but not that they should be abandoned as the election campaign continues with more than a year to go.

agarr@vancourier.com