In reply to Jason Morris.

It is interesting that a few years into the so-called death of old media, traditional methods of campaigning seem to have had far more effect than social media. If I had the time, it might be interesting to see if any of the unelected candidates threw themselves into the social media sphere at a higher level and remained unelected. Purely anectdotaly, Koehler actually made his presence online known to me by first following me on Twitter and then responding to one of my Tweets (quoting a Globe and Mail article about a lack of visible minorities in municipal governments). No one else did that aside from Frizzell who has been present in that sphere since long before the campaign. I think a couple followed, but none engaged in any sort of conversation- nor, it looks like, did they engage much anyone else online.
What would have been more interesting is if one of the candidates actively engaged in social media and the others did not. I think you would have better luck discerning if it was effective or not. As it stands, I would hardly count any of the winners as dark horses in this race.
I think what I'm most curious about is whether for all the talk of wanting to engage and communicate directly with citizens, how many will embrace the new tools of the 21st century to do so. And if they don't, why not? Because they don't find them to be effective? Or some other reason? I'm far from believing you have to be online in order to engage with others, but I do believe it can and has been done effectively, and am interested to see how it plays out in the next three years.