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.
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.
-- -- -- -- --
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
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.
Which doesn't account for Smitherman and Rossi being bald, they started out the campaign that way.
There is but one place for them to put their hope and it is my candidacyGeorge "I am the messiah" Smitherman
George Smitherman's hysteria at his free fall from what he thought was going to be a coronation to an almost universal rejection has sent him into crazed, messianic, self-delusional statements like, "This is a bit of an alarm for people over what's happening in their city and to line up behind one vision -- a destructive, reckless one or one that is about city building. There is but one place for them to put their hope and it is my candidacy ... We will fight for our city to the end."
As Blazing Cat Fur noted, the addition of famed Liberal party strategist Warren Kinsella hasn't helped Rocco Rossi's polling numbers, but it has made him look desperate and pathetic with his ill-advised and almost universally condemned proposal to revisit the Spadina Expressway as an underground tunnel.
What I find personally gratifying is the idiotic, sanctimonious, histrionic blathering by The Toronto Star's mouthpiece for the condo developers' lobby, Christopher Hume, who wrote "the rise of Rob Ford should come as no surprise. It is yet another manifestation of the wave of nasty right-wing populism sweeping North America. Its newly emboldened hordes may not know what they need, but they know what they want"
Speaking as one of the horde, Torontonians don't want is to be ignored by their politicians and be told how we should think by self-absorbed socialists. We don't need to be told how our "visionary leaders" know what's best for us, whether or not we agree.
Heather Mallick already accused Toronto of being "nuts" when it looked like the city was on the verge of electing Ford. Now that it seems a near-certainty, she must be having a complete mental breakdown (I wonder to what extent that will even be noticeable). I look forward to reading her next rant on the subject.
Welcome to democracy, comrades. I know you hate it. It must be frustrating for Hume, Mallick, Miller and their ilk to be so convinced of their own intellectual superiority yet remain unable to comprehend how they can't do as good a job of convincing the public as their supposed inferiors.
I could explain it to them in one sentence, but why bother; they'd never believe it.
UPDATE: This condescending email just went out from the Smitherman campaign. With little of his own virtue to offer, "I am the messiah" George is going in for all-out panicked fear-mongering with:
If an election were held tomorrow Rob Ford would be mayor.
That’s what two new public opinion polls out tonight show. They also show that George Smitherman is the only candidate who can stop Rob Ford.
While Joe Pantalone, Sarah Thompson and Rocco Rossi have all made important contributions to this election race, they cannot become Mayor.
George represents the best of Toronto’s values: tolerance and respect, hard work, caring, balance and honesty. Over the next five weeks we must redouble our efforts to present George to the people of Toronto and to give them a clear choice: Rob Ford’s city of division, recklessness and anger, and George’s city of bringing people together, balance and sensible choices.
We need your help to fight for our vision of Toronto. We need you to attend debates and events and to actively cheer George on; we need you to staff the telephones and to knock on doors; and most especially we need you to talk to your friends and co-workers. Now is the time to get active.
In yesterday’s New York Times Michael Bloomberg, New York’s Mayor, said "Anger, is not a government strategy," he added. "It’s not a way to govern." He was speaking about the tide in America, but he could just as easily have been talking about the anger being exploited by Rob Ford in Toronto.
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.
After relentless effort by the Toronto Star to smear front-running mayoral candidate Rob Ford only to see it backfire, Toronto's leadership campaign has taken a bizarre twist.
Yesterday, in the span of a few hours, Smitherman has had to reverse himself on an ill-conceived idea to tax businesses 10 million dollars in order to pay for a program to force them to hire youth workers. The question is whether Smitherman backtracked because of the outcry against his proposal or because he learned that what he wanted to impose was actually in violation of Ontario law related to the ratio of commercial to residential tax.
The Star, over and over again, has attempted to sink Rob Ford with his alleged gaffes, but with each attack, his popularity soars further.
Ford's comments last month about the need to take care of its own before taking on immigrants was supposed to be a "turning point" according to second-place rival George Smitherman. It was, but not in the way Smitherman anticipated. In the weeks following those remarks, Ford's lead over Smitherman doubled.
Whatever the reason, all the efforts of the Toronto Star have been unable to prevent Ford from succeeding or Smitherman from sabotaging himself.
Will the Star, to whom Rob Ford has said he will not speak to during the campaign following slanderous stories they published about him, now switch allegiances to last-place candidate Rocco Rossi, who was a former executive with Torstar Corp?
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.
-- --- --- ---- ---- --- --- ----
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.
The Quartet of Fools, Rob Ford's rivals for mayor, thought they tasted blood during this exchange during the debate reported on at the CP 24 website:
George Smitherman discussed the issue, accusing Rob Ford of wanting Toronto to become a refugee-free-zone, something Ford didn't deny.
"I have to say I was very shocked when I heard councillor Ford say Toronto should be a refugee-free zone," Smitherman says.
However, Ford shot back saying Toronto can't support more.
"We can't even take care of our 2.5 million people," says Ford. "I think it's important that we take care of the people now before we start bringing in more."
According to a recent poll, it turn out 60% of Canadians not only agree with Ford but would take matters even further and have returned the ship of Tamil refugees that arrived in Vancouver back to Sri Lanka.
The Quartet of Fools (Smitherman, Rossi, Thompson and Pantalone) and their histrionic flacks in the media were anxious to pounce upon this as some sort of general anti-immigrant or even racist sentiment, but obviously, Toronto's voters aren't buying that desperate, disingenuous spin.
It’s just possible that, as Canadians become increasingly familiar with how easy it is to take advantage of the country’s good intentions, they become equally reluctant to play the rube. It should be no surprise that suspicion of immigrants is high among recent immigrants, since many — having worked their way through the complex, convoluted system — appreciate just how difficult and perverse the process is, and how great the temptation to look for loopholes. Since many immigrants are still trying to bring over members of extended families, they have an interest in ensuring the system works as fairly as possible. Many also come from countries where the rule of law is not exactly No. 1 on the national priority list, and are wary of taking anyone’s story at face value.
Which doesn’t mean they hate Tamils. What it does mean is that Canadians have grown extremely distrustful of the immigration and refugee system, and of the politicians who set the rules.
What the Quartet of Fools have attempted is the cheapest gimmick out of a con artist's bag of tricks: "Don't believe your eyes or ears or what you know to be true, believe me."
The polls show that Canadians are tired of politicians telling them how they should think and want to be represented by someone who cares about what their constituents DO think.
Support for Ford is wide and deep and comes from every community in the city (with the exception of the Marxists, but they are more of a conspiracy than a community)
