A prominent St. John's realtor claims she has signed up most potential voters, heading into a federal nomination battle with a political veteran.

'They want something fresh,' says aspiring candidate Debbie Hanlon, who hopes to parlay her business success into politics.
(CBC)

"What I've been selling is myself," said Debbie Hanlon, who has made a career of selling real estate, and who operates the Coldwell Banker Hanlon company.

Hanlon is challenging Walter Noel, a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister, for the party nomination in St. John's East, a seat currently held by Conservative Norm Doyle, who will retire when the next election is called.

About 2,100 Liberals are eligible to vote in Tuesday's nomination. Hanlon said her organization has signed up 1,500 of them.

"The big word that I've heard throughout the entire campaign is change. They want something fresh, they want something new, they are sick of the way things were," said Hanlon, a political rookie.

"And they are hoping I'm going to bring that."

Noel, who represented the former district of Pleasantville — and its successor, Virginia Waters — in the house of assembly for 14 years, has been around politics long enough to know that a ballooning membership list isn't always what it seems.

Walter Noel says signing up new members is one thing, but getting them to vote is quite another.
(CBC)

He said his campaign has heard complaints from people who said "they don't know how come they've been signed up, they don't recall signing up … Others are saying that they didn't mean to be signed up."

The race had once been a three-way competition, at least informally, but businessman and veteran backroom campaigner Paul Antle decided several weeks ago not to pursue the nomination. Antle placed second to Doyle in the 2006 election.

Moreover, Noel said, signing up potential voters is one thing, but getting them to vote is another.

"You know, it's easy to go around a supermarket or something and get people to sign forms for different things, but the real question is who can produce voters on election night."

Wide-open race

The race for St. John's East — which has been represented by the Tories, Liberals and New Democrats over the last 20 years — is expected to be wide open.

No prominent contender has yet stepped forward in the Tory camp to succeed Doyle, who has held the seat since 1997, when he defeated Liberal Bonnie Hickey.

New Democrats, meanwhile, are watching to see if former MP Jack Harris, who won the seat in a 1987 byelection, will run again. Harris represented a part of the east end of St. John's in the house of assembly between 1990 and 2006, and was provincial party leader for 13 of those years.

A probable factor in the race is Danny Williams's "anyone but Conservative" campaign, in which the fiery Newfoundland and Labrador premier has asked voters to choose candidates from other parties in the next federal election.

Williams has been locked in a war of words with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, over the federal Conservatives' decision to incorporate offshore oil revenues in the new equalization formula.