THE FOLLOWING WEB PAGE IS BEING PRESERVED FOR HISTORICAL PURPOSES ONLY. THE 2010 ELECTION IS OVER. TORONTO HAS A NEW MAYOR, ROB FORD. MARK STATE IS NO LONGER PUBLICLY CAMPAIGNING FOR POLITICAL OFFICE.

Mark State will be giving his 40th pint of blood at the Blood Donor Clinic on the southwest corner of King and University at 12 Noon on Thursday October 21, 2010. He invites everyone to make an appointment to give blood. "It's in you to give!" Call 416-974--9900 or 1-888-2DONATE (236-6283).

--"One of our volunteers, Judy, tells me that it's really good for me when I give blood because the body makes a lot back up at once, flooding my system with brand new fresh blood cells. Great thought, eh?" -Mark



All Supporters

We continually receive requests for information about where in the media you can find Mark State. Typically, supporters say, “Is Mark State still running? How come I never see him anywhere?” I see those other five candidates, but never Mark.”

There are three answers to the question.

1. Yes, Mark is still running, but the general media is not interested in him because he is not yet a prominent candidate. It’s you, his supporters, who will be able to change that status.
2. Mark has been interviewed twice on CP24, once for their website page and once for an on-air piece, and once on Rogers Television (CH 10), for a three-minute piece that is currently running in Toronto. He has a number of on-line interviews, and a recent Toronto Star interview. A trip to Google will reveal that STATE is featured in stories and commentaries all over the net.
3. But our campaign can only run an efficient marketing blitz to alert both voters and media that Mark State deserves to be treated as an important Mayoralty candidate by increasing his visibility and importance everywhere using professional marketing and media services.
If you truly want Mark to have a reasonable chance of winning the election, there are two things you can do:
Ø Volunteer your help by emailing our Volunteer Coordinator at markstatetoronto@gmail.com, with ‘Volunteer’ in the subject line & contact information.

Ø Make a campaign contribution so we can continue to promote STATE’s Candidacy professionally.

Many people think that making a contribution is expensive. But it really is not, thanks to the city’s rebate policy.

If you donate $100.00, for example, it really only costs you $25.00, because the city mails you a cheque back for $75.00 after the election, regardless of whether your candidate wins or not. How great a deal is that???

Most of us can afford $25.00 once in a while to pay for important things, and getting $100.00 worth of marketing value for a relatively small political campaign contribution like $25.00 for a candidate you think would make a good Mayor is important.


CONTACT INFORMATION

Contact Us: vote.mark.state@cia.com


**SPECIALIZED INFORMATION ABOUT CANDIDATE FORUMS**

For all Supporters, but especially where Mayoralty forums are held:

Mayoralty Forums give you a personal opportunity to support a Candidate that rarely occurs during an election, and have fun doing it. You get to be a major player during the Forum process. If you play your game correctly as a supporter, your Candidate wins the forum.

PLAYING THE “Mayoralty Forum” GAME

Thumbnail Description: Following is an interesting aspect of city politicking called a Mayoralty Candidates’ Forum.

A Mayoralty Candidates’ Forum is a kind of a game with actual playing strategies, winners, and losers.

A losing Candidate doesn’t get to speak or say anything to the audience during the forum other than a brief self-introduction, just sits there while the others get to speak.
A winning Candidate gets to speak a lot because lots of audience questions are directed at him/her. The clear winner “owns” the forum. The prize is audience love and press recognition of the win.

The setup allows Candidates who understand how to play to speak, and keeps the others silent. If you want to win, you have to know the rules in advance; but nobody tells you the rules, so only Candidates who have been involved in this kind of game before or who are members of political parties that know the game can win.

Until now.

In the last election, as some of you may know, I ran just to learn this kind of thing in case I chose to run for office again in future. By revealing the game and the rules, I’m leveling the playing field to give democracy her chance.

Here are the 4 rules for winning the Mayoralty Forum Game.

1. Questions for the participants must be submitted in advance and may also typically be submitted just before the start of the forum (so your group has to come a little early) to people who will collect them. Sometimes, the ones collected in advance are ignored, and sometimes the ones collected at the auditorium are ignored. Sometimes neither source of questions is ignored.

If you want your question asked, (and in order to win, the Candidate must have supporters with questions) you have to submit it both online and at the Forum. (See Rule #3)

2. Once your question has been submitted, it is chosen randomly to be asked at the forum (unless the forum has been set up to favour one Candidate over the others…but this rarely happens).

Make sure that both you and several friends either submit the very same question to the forum or flood the forum with questions both in advance and at the auditorium so your questions have a better chance of being chosen randomly.

3. When you write your question down on the piece of paper you intend to submit, you need to

Place the name of the Candidate you want to answer it at the top of your question form.

(a) Then that Candidate will have an opportunity to speak to the question for a fixed period of time, for example two minutes. If enough questions come through the panel for one particular Candidate, then that Candidate gets to speak for lots of minutes, and the others don’t [WINNER]. If no questions come through for the Candidate, he or she doesn’t get a chance to speak at all [LOSER].

(b) If the question is chosen during a part of the forum reserved for some Candidates while others are excluded (the forum is set up to favour some Candidates over the others), the question moderator will still announce that the question is directed at your Candidate. It becomes amusing and noticeable to the audience and then embarrassing to the moderators if lots of questions during this part of the proceedings are directed at a Candidate who is not a part of that section of the forum. The press also picks up on the fact that so many questions were directed to your Candidate who was at the time unable to answer them, and contributes to the overall win anyway.

4. The next part of the game concerns audience response. Candidates who know the rules will ensure that they have

Plenty of supporters in the crowd who will cheer loudly whenever their Candidate makes any statement of introduction at the beginning or at good points during an answer during the proceedings.

This gives the audience a strong feeling that the Candidate being cheered must be a great choice for office because so many people like him or her, and they go away thinking that the Candidate being cheered is a good one to vote for…even if he or she is a complete nincompoop. Audiences are swung by those cheers, believe it or not.

Review

So if you want your Candidate to win the Mayoralty Campaign Forum game, do the following:

· Think up a bunch of questions that your Candidate can answer and sound good about.

· You and your friends submit lots of questions, duplicating them amongst yourselves. First, submit them all in separate emails. Then, submit them all at the forum. When submitting them at the forum, you may be only permitted to submit one question. In that case, divide up the duplicates carefully so that not only are there duplicates of your questions, but there are plenty of questions for your Candidate.

· Make sure your Candidate’s name is at the top as the person you are “asking” the questions:
e.g. “This question is directed to David Miller” Q: What kind of broom sweeps cleanest?

· Invite lots of friends and family to come and cheer (loudly) together with you when your Candidate finishes making a statement. You won’t know everybody else who also is cheering, since your Candidate’s supporters don’t all know each other, so don’t be surprised that other people you don’t know are cheering for your Candidate too.

Enjoy the game. As it is being played out, you will see that many Candidates and their supporters are playing it, and how it’s the effective players that actually win, regardless of what they say.

But as an audience, you can send questions of any kind up for asking.

NOTE: Some people think they can send a question to a Candidate that will embarrass him or her. This is a bad idea for two reasons. 1. A skillful Candidate will turn the question to an advantage and use the time to speak to his or her own benefit for the full two minutes. 2. If the moderators think that the question will waste the audience’s time, they won’t ask it, and you will have wasted your opportunity to allow your Candidate to speak …especially since your question was lucky enough to have been one of the ones chosen at random.

Keep your questions at all times directed to your Candidate and keep them positive so that your Candidate can look good answering them.

Note that the five media-chosen Candidates in Scarborough have had approximately 21 minutes each allotted to them in the first part of the evening, and the others have approximately three minutes each, which will become less than two minutes each after each is given a 30 second introduction time. Make your questions and your cheers count!