There is a much being written about Rob Ford's election on the day following his win. The Toronto Star is both petulant and in shock, a lot of media is attributing Ford's win to "voter anger."
Ford's win is very easily and simply explained.
Ford's message throughout the campaign was "Respect for taxpayers." It was a positive message that all the people of Toronto, and not the narrow political class and a few special interests like civic unions and arts grants recipients, should have a say in how their city is managed.
The main opposition to Ford was George Smitherman, whose only message was one of fear-mongering and arrogance in what appeared to be a sense of his own entitlement to power.
Voters chose the positive message of Ford over the negative message of Smitherman.
And Joe Pantalone, who ran on the idea that David Miller did a good job and his legacy should continue, was trounced, receiving only about 11% of the vote. The message is clear there too. Toronto did not feel David Miller performed well in his job.
UPDATE: In a decisive rebuke to the fear-mongers who tried to smear Ford by suggesting he was a racist because he said Toronto needs to focus on its own needs before taking in more immigrants, the last poll before the election showed Ford was the clear favorite among Torontonians born outside Canada. For that group, Ford's "margin rose to 51.7 per cent, over Mr. Smitherman’s 30.1 per cent."
Adam Vaughan, the councillor for Ward 20, came by my house the other day, campaigning for re-election and...
On a personal level, Adam's a nice, sincere guy. I think he's wrong about quite a few things in his political stances. His support for the despicable Krystin Wong Tam, one of the people behind Queers Against Israel Apartheid, is inexcusable. Adam is one of the councillors who appears content with the Miller status quo and from what I inferred, he thinks Miller's greatest failing is that he hadn't effectively communicated all the wonderful things he'd accomplished during his time as Toronto's mayor.
Vaughan doesn't appear to believe Toronto needs spending cuts and that a lot of our financial woes and the deterioration of roads and infrastructure not being properly addressed is because of the city's growth and the costs of transportation.
Some of those transportation costs being due to the incredible waste that happened during the St. Clair street car construction that cost than 300% of its proposed budget. Vaughan's leftist council colleague Joe Mihevc, as Deputy Chair of the TTC and a principle proponent of that mismanaged disaster, bears a huge measure of responsibility for that, and hopefully the electorate in Ward 21 will remember that and put in an alternative like Shimmy Posen.
The conversation with Vaughan took a strange turn. Vaughn has pretty much a lock on his downtown Trinity-Spadina ward. He's not facing any serious competition, so he seemed more interested in investing his time, not to advocate for himself in his ward, but to advocate voting against Rob Ford as mayor.
It was bizarre. First Vaughan started making comparisons between Ford and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Obviously the comparisons were meant disparagingly and I interrupted Adam to point out that he was making a big assumption to posit that I shared his views about Limbaugh and Beck. (While I find neither to be exceptionally profound individuals, I don't find their positions so outrageous as to share the socialist "progressives" assessment of their being devils incarnate.) Adams' response suggested he wasn't taking me seriously. It appeared incomprehensible to him that an intelligent person couldn't feel the same way. Particularly an intelligent person who lived south of Bloor Street.
As I said, the conversation was a bit bizarre. Adam made some very cogent points about Ford's council record being less impressive than his campaign would suggest, and then he undermined his arguments, in my mind, by trying to suggest I shouldn't vote for Ford because of Ford's father's record as an MPP when Mike Harris was Premier.
Adam then proceeded with an argument that may play well with some of his constituents, but struck me as the ultimate in political cynicism. He brought Ford's having lied (or forgotten about) his DUI/marijuana incident 11 years ago in Florida and his drunken outburst at a hockey game. The cynicism of harping on those matters is that it suggests Annex voters are more concerned with image than substance. My concern is with having a mayor who is determined to get our roads fixed, our municipal costs down, and who isn't in the pocket of detestable unions like CUPE Ontario. I told Vaughan I don't care if Ford smokes joints during council meetings, as long as he can cut the waste at city hall.
Ford is still preferable to councillor who spends $13,800 on their website or one who launches libel suits at the taxpayers' expense.
As far as I was concerned, the conversation reached its nadir when Adam told me "Ford is like George Bush, he tells you he's smart, but he's not."
It became apparent then that I was speaking with someone so blinded by their ideology that it was impossible to recognize or acknowledge any truth beyond it. George Bush was the president of the United States for two terms. In debates, he bettered supposedly more intelligent opponents like Ann Richards and Al Gore. You may disagree with what he did, but one of the reasons for his successes was that he was faced by adversaries so arrogant that they refused to concede the fact that someone who disagrees with them might actually posses some intellect. And he mopped the floor with them.
Adam conceded that Smitherman is not someone people could bring themselves to vote for. That part of the conversation was like his tepid Smitherman endorsement. I like Joe Pantalone in the same way I like Adam. I disagree with him, but at least I know that I'm talking to someone who is communicating what they honestly believe. Vaughan's endorsement of Smitherman is not based on any enthusiasm for Smitherman but on an all-consuming abhorrence of Rob Ford.
The 'strategic voting' endorsements of Smitherman by Mihevc and Vaughan should be instructive to voters. Smitherman has lately been talking about himself as a "progressive" candidate. Those paying attention need no reminder that "progressive" is also a code word that Marxists and radical socialists use to describe themselves.
Is Smitherman a Marxist or a radical socialist? Absolutely not. But he appears to be someone who will make shady deals and talk out of both sides of his mouth to achieve power. He's a McGuinty Liberal. The "progressive" who is going to cut taxes and waste? Don't hold your breath.
Yesterday the Globe and Mail endorsed him. It was the least enthusiastic endorsement I have ever read from a newspaper.
"Mr. Smitherman is vague. The risk in supporting Mr. Ford is what he might do as mayor, the risk in supporting Mr. Smitherman is what he might not do. The latter of the two has failed to articulate a vision or a strategy of his own, and he could easily end up as a second David Miller..He is essentially a professional politician, an office-seeker with a taste for managing, but not for transformation."
One of Eye on a Crazy Planet's readers provided this rendition of what we could look forward to if Toronto doesn't have the sense to reject Smitherman
Downtown Trinity-Spadina Ward 20 councillor Adam Vaughan has joined Ward 21 councillor Joe Mihevc in abandoning his "progressive" ally on council, Joe Pantalone, in favour of endorsing the strategic vote for George "Captain eHealth" Smitherman in Toronto's mayoral race.
The left wing on council must be terrified that Rob Ford will make good on his promise to cut council perks and expenses and are opting for whatever they think will keep their money flowing.
The poll shows support for each of the candidates as follows:
•Rob Ford: 44%
•George Smitherman: 38%
•Joe Pantalone: 16%
•Other candidates: 2%
•Undecided: 16%
It’s in contrast to an Ipsos Reid poll completed before Mr. Rossi withdrew and released on Wednesday that showed Mr. Smitherman with a narrow lead of 31%, followed by Rob Ford at 30%, Mr. Pantalone at 11% and Mr. Rossi at 4%.
It looks like enough people remembered that a vote for Smitherman is like an endorsement of Dalton McGuinty's mismanagement of the province and of Smitherman's incompetence as McGuinty's Minister of Health.
Royson James, one of the few columnists at al-Starzeera who hasn't been driven over the edge of sanity by Rob Ford, wrote an astute article on Saturday that points out some of the attraction Ford has for Toronto's voters.
Ford doesn’t have to define himself during this campaign. Over 10 years as a city councillor his message hasn’t deviated: Keep spending in check. He owns the brand.
Starting with his own office budget, Ford famously spent $2 of the allotted $53,000 tax dollars one year, even as many spent near the limit and most spent about $40,000. That created many enemies among the big spenders. Some argued he was using his own money to run his office and tried to force him to use tax dollars.
The result? Now Ford must file the spending amounts with the clerk, even if he uses his own money. But all this has done is reaffirm that Ford spends much less than his counterparts, no matter whose money it is. And the legend grows.
Critics argue that the potential savings from office budgets is so small, the impact on the $9.2 billion budget is negligible. Critics underestimate the value of symbols. If councillors routinely waste thousands of dollars on the purchase of espresso machines, bunny suits, expensive Christmas cards, unwarranted cab rides to Woodbridge late at night — all under the guise of serving constituents — what else are they wasting, constituents wonder.
It sure got me wondering.
Particularly after seeing Joe Mihevc's overwrought press release in which he abandoned his old ally Joe Pantalone to advocate strategic voting for George "Captain eHealth" Smitherman.
So I took a look at some city councillors' expenses.
Ward 21 Councillor Joe Mihevc has spent $13,800 of tax dollars since 2008 on his website.
Ward 30 Councillor Paula Fletcher spent over $18,000 on "advertising and promotion" since 2008.
Although that sounds almost paltry compared to Ward 32 Councillor Sandra Bussin's $27,000 in the "advertising and promotion" budget line. And that doesn't even include her notorious "Bussin Blue Jays" which came out of the approximately $15,000 she charged to "other expenses" since 2008.
(And "other expenses" isn't all other expenses..oh, no, not by a long shot. It's just stuff that doesn't fit into one of the many other budget lines expensed by city councilors.)
Advertising and promotion of what!!??!!
When Ford spends next to nothing of his $53,000 office budget, and is critical of big spenders on council, among whom Mihevc is one of the biggest, James is right, it 's got to create some resentment.
But that resentment might be on the voters' side and work for Ford. Particularly when one sees where some of the "slush fund" gets spent.
And Joe, that's some great website we paid for. I probably could have got you a better deal. Or you could have just gone to blogger.com and set one up for free and saved us that money. Still, who cares if you may have overpaid? It's not like that money came out of your pocket.
Leftist Toronto City Councillor Joe Mihevc is a supporter of David Miller, whose disgraceful performance as mayor during the civic strike in his last term had killed his hopes for re-election. But Mihevc has reluctantly turned his back on fellow Miller "progressive" Joe Pantalone.
Mihevc advocates strategic voting for George "Captain eHealth" Smitherman because in his words, front-running Rob Ford "would destroy so much that we value about our city – its diversity, animated neighbourhoods, care for the newcomers and the poor, our quality of life." I guess that is Mihevc's way of saying 'implement policies which would reduce the city's skyrocketing debt and cut the bloated waste at city hall.'
Or maybe it's his way of saying Ford is going to try to get to the bottom of why the St. Clair streetcar fiasco, which was budgeted at $43 million, ended up costing $120 million.
Mihevc's hysteria continues with: "Under Rob Ford, City Council will not function, our city agencies will be in disarray, economic development will be hurt and our city will suffer in many ways."
I was waiting for the part where Mihevc describes how the earth will open to the sulphuric pits of hell, and how the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will ride their steeds in a crimson sky above the CN Tower which will be transformed into a pillar of fire, but he didn't go quite that far.
I also didn't notice the part where Joe tells you how popular he is with the city's unions who dread Ford clamping down on them on behalf of the city's taxpayers.
Sure Joe. Whatever you say. There's a good candidate running in Ward 21 named Shimmy Posen.
And Joe, if you're reading this, as I expect you or one of your staffers will be, it would have been one thing if you had endorsed Smitherman by extolling his virtues. But evidently that task was too challenging (I don't disagree with you there), so you felt the need to lay on ridiculous invective about Ford. That's an insult to the intelligence of your constituents and invites this sort of response.
Mr. Pantalone was completely shocked by Mr. Mihevc’s “incomprehensible” decision to support his opponent, which he clearly took personally. “I don’t know how Joe Mihevc can explain his position to his progressive base. He should be ashamed of himself,” Mr. Pantalone said last night, after a debate. “He didn’t even give me the decency of a phone call, after all the years we’ve known each other. I thought we were friends.”
Rob Ford walked into the lion's den last Wednesday night.
One might not normally think of the grandiloquent facade and punctilious interior of The Art Gallery of Ontario as such. But for Ford, who was bringing a message of fiscal austerity and responsible government to a privileged crowd used to benefiting from taxpayer largess without accountability, the ambiance at what was billed as "Toronto's Arts Debate" was that of an angry mob at a lynching.
Ford didn't have to attend that debate. There have been more debates in this mayoral contest than any other in the history of Toronto. On that day, they had another one scheduled later on. Sometimes, for one reason or another, the candidates miss certain debates.
But Ford is unique among his rivals in that he isn't the type to run away from having to deliver a message that he knows his audience will not want to hear.
Joe Pantalone, Rocco Rossi, and George Smitherman were competing with each other to pander the most to the assembled special interest group who have a strong stake in maintaining their plethora of taxpayer funding.
All, with the exception of Ford, committed to increasing the amount of tax dollars that go to "the arts." Smitherman provided his now-routine and implausible Smither-math equation of freezing taxes, increasing spending and cutting debt. Rossi, whose single-digit polling numbers barely justify his continued presence at these debates, has been bragging on his website about he delivered 'the line of the night' with "It's better to just let him talk." This referring to one of the times the crowd heckled Ford for saying they would have to look at alternate ways to taxpayer funding, including private sector partnerships, to support arts programs.
I disagree with Rossi's assessment.
For me, the 'line of the night' was when Ford, in the face of a hostile crowd, said, "I'd love to be able to say I'd increase funding for the arts, but I'm not going to make promises I don't know I can keep."
Ford also knew he was going to face resentment when he laid down a very hard and, in that room, unpopular truth when he let them know, "Not everybody cares about this issue as much as you do."
That, in a nutshell, is what differentiates Ford from his rivals.
The city is $330 million dollars behind in road repairs thanks to the neglect of David Miller's administration. We have a $3 Billion dollar debt. The reality is that public spending is going to have to go down, or stay the same, but not go up to fund special interests. That's how Miller got us in this mess.
This debate reminded me why I respect Rob Ford. It's because he respects me enough to tell me the truth, even if he knows I won't like hearing it.
It took courage for Ford to walk into that room, knowing what he was going to face. He may have been booed by a crowd consisting of 400 members of a special interest group, but I anticipate he'll be cheered at the ballot box by the majority of Torontonians who appreciate his looking out for the taxpayers' interests.
You can see the whole debate for yourself and make up your own mind by checking it out at this link.
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Some other interesting notes from this debate:
It was obvious there is a real animosity between Joe Pantalone and George Smitherman.
Far less so than between Pantalone and Ford. The difference is that with Ford and Pantalone, you get two very different visions about the direction they believe the city should go in, but both are honest and up-front individuals. With either, a voter knows what he is choosing and can make that informed choice.
With former McGuinty cabinet minister Smitherman, who knows if he means what he says or what he'll deliver on? He's changed his message so many times it's not worth the trouble to keep track.
Some notable moments:
Pantalone talked about Smitherman "slithering" away from an answer (Smitherman is often disparagingly called "Slitherman" by his detractors)
Smitherman retorted "that's just rude and a new low for you" { a "short" joke making fun of Pantalone's 5'1" height?}
Pantalone: "being Mayor of Toronto is not a consolation prize for not being premier of Ontario" (that's my runner-up for "line of the night.")
Joe used his "gardening" analogy for Totronto again. I respect Joe, so I wish he's stop using his Chauncey Gardiner line.
It's editorial board has been pressuring Sarah Thomson, Rocco Rossi, and Joe Pantalone to drop out of the Toronto mayoral race and support George (Captain eHealth) Smitherman in their effort to prevent Ford from becoming mayor.
Having succeeded with Thomson, who ended her fiscally (and intellectually) bankrupt campaign this week, they are now setting their sights on Rossi.
Which shows how slow-witted some at The Toronto Star must be.
Rossi's internal polling shows three quarters of his support would go to Ford.
When the Star launched its attack campaign against Ford in June, he was in 2nd place, polling in the mid teens. After all the Star's hard work, Ford is now in first place with between a 5% and 20% lead over George Smitherman, depending on the poll.
this fine artistic rendition was stolen from Blazing Cat Fur
Yeah, there's a lot of blah, blah.. "bourgeois media" ..blah..blah.. 'oppression of the working class', 'exploitative capitalist' type stuff, but they actually seem to be less off the mark as some with:
Rob Ford has, so far, leapt to the front of the mayoral race. He is the only candidate who has had something different to say than all of the other politicians. Ford is nothing but a populist, but he has been able to mobilize the real anger against the status-quo that is present amongst Torontonians. Unlike Bay St.’s darling, George Smitherman, Ford is seen as someone who has answers to the financial crisis of the city and has mobilized support on this basis. However, it would be wrong to characterize this as a move to the right in the general population. There is a seething anger that is looking in every direction for an outlet. One poll that had Ford in front also revealed that David Miller would be in the lead if he were on the ballot. What we have is an incredibly unstable electorate that is looking for answers. If a radical solution is not given by the organizations of the working class then a radical solution will be provided by the right wing demagogues.
Labour’s candidate, Joe Pantalone, offers very little to get working class people mobilized for this election. Aside from having virtually no charisma, Pantalone offers the status-quo, with no solution to tackle all of the problems facing working class Torontonians. His campaign commitments are anaemic at best, with such radical demands as planting more trees and building a cricket pitch. He is, rightfully, seen by many as just another City Hall career politician. It is no wonder that he is far behind the leading candidates.
If Ford’s support holds as the election gets closer, there is a real danger that the leaders of the labour movement, seeing that support for Pantalone is going nowhere, may urge workers to vote for George Smitherman in order to stop Ford from gaining office. However, there is absolutely nothing “progressive” about Smitherman, and nothing that would make him a better option for workers than Rob Ford. Like Ford, Smitherman has promised to privatize various city services (particularly garbage and recycling services), and has promised to “trim” the city’s workforce. For six years, Smitherman was one of Premier Dalton McGuinty’s key cabinet ministers, and we only need to look at the Liberals’ sorry record over that time to know what sort of attacks would come if he were elected mayor.
Sensing he has lost his once firm grip on the mayoral race, distant second-place rival George Smitherman released his financial plan today.
It is an eerie echo of Rob Ford's with a less aggressive cost-saving plan through employee attrition and a few figures that don't add up quite right. Not that I'll hold that against him, after all, who's do?
But what inspires less than full confidence in his commitment to it is how his policies have shifted to be more like Rob Ford's as Ford's popularity increased.
Some of his odder and more dubious items of projected revenue include $10 million for "'Catch the little things' incentives; and $132 Million for - "Smarter procurement"
His plan relies on quite a bit of financial influx from his old boss, McGuinty. I actually believe Smitherman would be able to talk him into it. McGuinty would have an interest in buying Toronto to keep it out of the hands of Tim Hudak's Tories. I'm also confident McGuinty would find some new taxes to pay for it, so what we save in municipal costs will end up being added as provincial ones.
this fine artistic rendition was stolen from Blazing Cat Fur
Of course, I could be just a bit over-cynical. After all, who wouldn't trust a former McGuinty cabinet minister?
UPDATE: Socialist extremists at rabble.ca hope for Smitherman win.
Coming to grips with the realization that their preferred candidate, Joe Pantalone, has no hope of winning, the radical socialists and extremists who frequent rabble.ca express hope for a Smitherman win in which he emerges in debt to union interests so they can retain control of city hall.
UPDATE 2: Royson James at The Toronto Star refers to Smitherman's untenable proposal to freeze taxes while increasing spending and claim to lower the debt all at the same time as "Smither-math"
Good moniker, Royson! I'll borrow that in future. I would have just called it "another McGuinty Liberal worthless promise", but your name for it is much better.
Christopher Hume, one of the coterie of al-Starzeera columnists going off the rails at the prospect of Rob Ford winning the mayoral contest in October, wrote today "does it make sense to get rid of half of council for no other reason than to save $6 million on a $12 billion budget?"
Evidently, Hume should do what he does best and be out lobbying for some big condo to wreck a neighbourhood somewhere and stay away from numbers. Hume complains, "Government isn’t business and voters aren’t consumers. Were Toronto run like a corporation, not a democracy, the fallout would make the current angst seem a love-in. Despite what the candidates might say, government does not exist to turn a profit."
It sure doesn't when the likes of Miller, Smitherman and Pantalone are running it.
Earlier in his column, Hume mocked Ford for saying voters, "can’t relate to billions of dollars, but they can relate to thousands of dollars. They can relate to getting free gas, free food, free hotels, all the stuff people have to pay for and councillors don’t.”
Clearly, Hume doesn't have any idea how much can be done with the $6,000,000.00 in taxpayer savings he's scoffing at. At least he is helping out by unwittingly proving Ford's point.
On the bright side, Hume didn't call half the city of Toronto that supports Ford "newly emboldened hordes" again.
Sarah Thompson is considering backing out and endorsing another candidate, possibly Rocco Rossi or George Smitherman, according to reports today.
Evidently she has given up on her own candidacy and appears to be working with al-Starzeera on its "let's get behind Captain eHealth" campaign.
In an email to al-Starzeera The Star, she said she has been in discussions with “all teams to build consensus and work collaboratively”
Polls suggest her endorsement may not be worth much.
When asked if their support was “firm”, or if “it is possible that you might change your mind before Oct. 25?,” the answer was “firm” from 66 per cent of those supporting Ford, who is dominating the race with a simple message of spending cuts and improved customer service.
The “firm” response came from only 39 per cent of Smitherman and Rossi fans, and 38 per cent of Pantalone supporters. Voters backing Thomson were the most fickle, with 26 per cent saying they won’t budge — meaning almost three-quarters could move.
“Ford’s support, how sticky it is, was the most surprising number to me in this poll,” Shanoff said. “People aren’t just flirting with that option because of what’s happening at city hall. His message is sticking.”
I have been in discussions with all teams to build consensus and work collaboratively. After 8 months of working together with Rob, day in and day out, we have all seen the real Rob Ford and we all understand what a huge crisis Toronto would be in if Rob Ford were to become Mayor.
I have had a solid 10% support across the city. Smitherman has been coming down since he started and Joe hasn't been able to change his support.
I have not made any decision to step down. I know I have a solid 10% and a passionate tenacious team -- we don't have the money to do big advertising campaigns -- but word of mouth and passion have got us this far. We are working, as everyone else is, to see if we can garner the support that Smitherman can't seem to attract.
The next two weeks will determine if one of us can rise up or not.
Best,
Sarah
This tells us a couple of things.
1) Thompson is in all-out denial if she thinks her support is "firm" at 10%. If she remained in the election, her supporters could easily give up on this no-hoper and move to a better candidate.
2) Saying that her debates against Ford and the others constitiute "8 months of working together with Rob, day in and day out," confirms that Thompson's ditzy and delusional.
In the Toronto Mayoral debate yesterday, Joe Pantalone said, "The City of Toronto is a beatufiul garden, and yes you may need to trim it, shape it and prune it, but you have to protect it as well in order to continue flowering."
Those words sounded strangely familiar. Then I remembered the movie Being There, based on Jerzy Kosinski's novel about an idiot named Chance (a.k.a. Chauncey Gardiner) who, by speaking obliquely about gardening, lucks his way into political influence and power.
Since the forced amalgamation of Toronto by Mike Harris' government, the major mayoral candidates have all released their donor's lists prior to the election.
They are not legally required to do so; they have until 5 months after the election, but transparency has traditionally been an issue about which a responsible candidate would be conscious.
Rob Ford and Joe Pantalone are going to comply with tradition and release their donors list prior to the October 25 election.
George Smitherman, Rocco Rossi, and Sarah Thompson, the big-business and political establishment candidates, are not.
It's no surprise they don't want these lists made public. Then the electorate would see who has a vested interest in these candidates, and they might not like it.
Rob Ford is the only mayoral candidate with a history of standing up to developers to serve his constituents' interests.
But one thing I'll say for the non-disclosure trio; they've come up with some funny excuses:
Ms. Thomson said voluntary disclosure would be tantamount to using her donors to “promote myself.” “I think people should be voting on policy and whether they think the candidate can do the job,” she said. “It’s not about who’s most popular.”
Rossi's is pretty dodgy.
Bernie Morton, the veteran Conservative operative who took over Mr. Rossi’s campaign in August, said it wouldn’t be fair to donors to release their names without having warned them before they contributed.
“Honesty, openness and integrity would have [required] me to say to people originally, ‘when you donate to this campaign, your name will be released by the campaign to the media as a donor,’” he said. “In the absence of giving full disclosure about that from the onset, you can’t do it. I wouldn’t do that now.”
I'd have a few things to say about that dubious excuse, but Kelly Grant in the Globe covered it well with:
Mr. Rossi would have been well aware of the issue before he registered in January and started raking in donations – he was campaign manager for Mr. Tory in 2003, when the former Rogers chief executive released a roster of 2,265 individual contributors and 462 corporate donors one week before the election.
And Smitherman?
"We are going to comply with the law on disclosing our donors,” Erika Mozes said in an e-mail. “I know some of the other candidates may have told you that they are going to release donors and make a big deal of it ... at this time this is all I have to say on it.”
“They all underestimated the capacity of the Ford family team,” Doug Ford told the Star.
“We’re running circles around the Warren Kinsellas and John Laschingers,” he says, referring to political players: Kinsella, who recently volunteered for Rossi, and Laschinger, Joe Pantalone’s campaign manager.
“We’re laughing,” said Ford. “We figure there’s another one on board (Kinsella) and we’ve got to knock him off, too. It’s like knocking flies off . . . well, you know what.”
George Smitherman's campaign seem to be the only ones left in denial of the obvious.
"Davis maintains Smitherman will beat Ford. “I’m convinced people are tolerating Rob Ford — his antics, his misbehaviour, his hurtfulness — because they’re desperate to clean up the finances at city hall. But Rob Ford won’t be able to do that.”
And yet, while insisting the Smitherman camp “gets” the public’s anger about perceived waste and mismanagement at city hall — the crux of the Ford message — Davis said his candidate won’t roll out his fiscal plan until later this month.
Perhaps there’s a problem right there. Ford’s opponents still operate under old campaign rules — i.e., big announcements after Labour Day — while the whole universe is changing around them. It’s like the axiom, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making plans."
The unexpected column in The Star can be read in its entirety here.
It must be very frustrating for Toronto's socialists. They are convinced they are so much smarter and more sophisticated than the rest of us, yet they can't muster the intellect to make as persuasive a case to the voters as Rob Ford has done.
Why aren't people listening to the Left that wants us to vote for Joe Pantalone? It couldn't possibly be that they aren't our intellectual superiors. So how to explain the phenomenon? Heather Mallick at the Star has come up with the answer: It must be that everyone else is crazy!
Yesterday, I attended a barbecue with a number of friends and family. It was a group of people from different backgrounds and of varied economic status ranging in age from their thirties to their sixties. Some of these people were multi-generational Canadians and others were the first generation children of immigrants.
It had been overcast all morning with the grey skies seeming to hold the perpetual promise of rain, which by mid-afternoon, delivered on that promise. We gathered under a canopy watching the barbecuer-in-chief deal with the cooking, and all of us imbibing beer and liquor and conversing.
Eventually, the conversation turned to the municipal election. While the things my friends said may be apocryphal, given that this gathering was a seemingly representative microcosm of Toronto's citizenry, it also seemed instructive.
Almost to a person, everyone at that barbecue said they planned to vote for Rob Ford.
A phenomenon that has set the media's head spinning lately, particularly at the Toronto Star, is how after what seems to be fatal foible after fatal foible, Rob Ford's popularity has not diminished. It has in fact increased to the point where he far-and-away the front runner in the upcoming municipal election.
Ford's growing popularity amid The Star's attempts to sink him reminds me of the line Obi Wan Kenobi said to Darth Vader during their duel in Star Wars: A New Hope.
Alec Guiness, playing Kenobi, said: "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
While columnists and writers in the Globe and Mail have launched scathing personal attacks against Ford, the Toronto Star has been unrelenting in its vicious onslaught. The Star has gone to the point of printing stories that border on slander, such as their demonstrably false report that Ford physically assaulted a high school football player he was coaching.
While the editorial boards at the Star and Globe, whose arrogant views of their self-importance and influence must be reeling at how their all-out attempts to sink Ford have failed, what must be bothering them even more is the mystery of "why?"
Some columnists have already printed their own theories about the phenomenon of Ford's resilience, and some, like The Sun's Joe Wormington's recent coulmn, reflected some of what was said to me at the barbecue. It seems the media's 'piling on' of Ford about trivial matters while ignoring more serious transgressions by his rivals reflects a panic from the status quo at the prospect that waste and influence by special interests at city hall is in jeopardy.
The quartet of Smitherman, Rossi, Thompson and Panatlone all represented, as far as my friends were concerned, the status quo. And despite the quartet's insistence that they would change things, no one I spoke with yesterday believed them, while they did believe Ford. Why? Because Ford, through his whole career, has campaigned against waste in government, whereas the 2 members of the quartet who have been in elected office are firmly associated with wasteful spending.
Another component of Ford's popularity is his personality. Ford seems like a "real guy," the sort of person you could have a beer with. None of the quartet have been able to convey that convincingly.
And most tellingly, Ford impressed the people I spoke to as someone who is sincere. Ford carries himself as someone who says what he thinks. Sure, that means he says inopportune things from time-to-time. But that makes him a real person. And Ford will say how he feels regardless of who it offends, which as potentially damaging politically as it may be, suggests a refreshing honesty in a politician. In contrast, the quartet all came across as opportunists who are more likely to say something that they think will serve their political purposes than they would be likely to tell the truth.
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No issue made this more clear than reaction to Ford's comments about immigration that were spurred by the controversial arrival of a boatload of Tamil migrants. When Ford said this city can't afford to take in more people when we can't even take care of those already here, he was saying something that most people understand to be true. Sensing an opportunity to paint Ford in the light as "anti-immigration" and even "racist" the quartet piled on like hyenas.
The quartet couldn't have made a worse move. People who have come to Canada legally resent illegal migrants who circumvent the regulations complied with by and stringent efforts of honest immigrants more than anyone else. And nothing has made the dishonesty of Ford's opponents more clear than the accusation of "racism." There was no racial reference or implication to anything Ford said about Toronto's ability to care for its own. Toronto is the most diverse city in the world and "Toronto's own" includes people from every racial and cultural background on earth.
What may have sealed the deal for Ford is the recent revelation that 71% of Tamil "refugees" have returned to Sri Lanka on vacations since they came to Canada. What could be clearer proof that the immigration system and Canada's good graces are getting bilked? You don't go back to a country for a vacation if you are being persecuted there and your life is at risk.
The other factor that Ford stood alone against in the face of attack from the Quartet was his commitment to eliminate the city's "Fair Wage" policy which enforces union pay rates equalling municipal pay rates to outside contractors who make tenders to the City. Anyone can see through this. It costs the city tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. It eliminates much of the very reason and all of the savings the city could gain from outside tenders.
Who benefits from this policy is clear: Unions. The same unions that incumbent mayor David Miller is perceived as being beholden to. The same unions that the Quartet is trying to curry support from. What was telling was that even union people I spoke to were in favor of Ford's "Fair Wage" policy position.
Because only some people in some unions gain from the "fair wage" policy, particularly CUPE, which is fearful of competition and the pressure that getting outside sources to do the same or better jobs at cheaper rates would bring.
The union members I spoke to supported Ford because they don't identify themselves as being unionist before they do as being Torontonians and taxpayers. They don't want the next mayor to be a wasteful spender in the pocket of CUPE any more than anyone else outside of CUPE.
So, it seems to me that, no matter how hard the Toronto Star and the Status Quo Quartet may try, as long as Rob Ford keeps being Rob Ford, his momentum to the mayor's office is probably unstoppable.
UPDATE: AUGUST 23: An Ipsos Reid poll taken over the wekend shows Ford as the clear front runner with an 11 point lead over nearest rival, George Smitherman.
Rob Ford used city letterhead to solicit funds for charity. Letterhead that costs the taxpayers nothing because Ford's the only councilor who pays all his office expenses out of his own pocket.
Ford got no personal benefit from this and it cost the taxpayers ZERO.
Heck, Giambrone billed the taxpayer double that — $6,299.50 to be precise — for his private French lessons.
No integrity problems there it seems.
Now if Ford had spent $12,000 of taxpayers’ money for a posh luncheon with his friends and fellow freeloaders as Councillor Kyle Rae did, maybe they’d have thrown another party — and bill it, of course, to the taxpayers.
Or the $8,462.39 billed to the taxpayer for Kyle to go on holiday (AIDS conference) to Vienna, Austria — quite a bit more than last year’s sojourn to Mexico that cost us $5,368.77.
Never mind the $65,000 spent of our money for destroying Jarvis St. to get moms and dads home 20 minutes later to their kids to accommodate Rae and Mayor David Miller’s 27 bicycle friends.
No this investigation is focusing on $50 donations for football equipment and one donation for $400 from a good Samaritan company that could surely find more effective ways to gain favour at City Hall than to publicly support a local sports program.
There is a much being written about Rob Ford's election on the day following his win. The Toronto Star is both petulant and in shock, a lot of media is attributing Ford's win to "voter anger."
