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Next Mayor of Toronto?

I am going out on a limb here, I like to do that as some of you know.

Perhaps Miller's crashing of the Labour Day parade was a less than subtle hint that he won't run again ... he's got to know that this sort of antic won't sit well with the majority of voters, and they'll remember it. In essence, I am saying that with this one action he has said sayonara to the electorate. He looks like a tired out sort of fella to me anyway. He has tried to build political bridges and failed at that, a number of times. Is that not a reason to quit? It must be quite fatiguing.

Again, out on a limb but why not live dangerously ... the contest will likely be between Smitherman and Tory, and Smitherman should absolutely cream Tory.
 
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Let's hope we don't end up with Smitherman being the gay version of Art Eggleton...

As to David Miller, I think it's time to call it quits and let someone take over. The important initiatives are already enshrined in law or are otherwise a done deal...time to let history be the judge.

AoD
 
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All I really know about Smitherman is that in 2009 he professed that he'd never heard about Toronto needing new streetcars, despite years of media coverage, and various documents that the city has sent to the province over the issue.

This alone suggests a complete and total ignorance about the city that he lives in, that I really question his fitness to lead.

I'm also pondering his qualifications. While Miller's bio is relatively complete, I'm not finding much on Smitherman from the 1980s to the late 1990s. I can't even figure out where he went to school or what he studied!
 
TonyV:

That might be, but so far it's all personality, no policy - which is a bit disconcerting. That said, his willingness to be a pitbull might be beneficial after the rather unconfrontational Miller.

AoD
 
Northern Light said:
I think before detailing that its important to say I don't believe its as low as recent polls seem to suggest.

In fact, I will argue the polls are in some ways so misleading that its hard to believe there is not a purposeful agenda on the part of the commissioning media outlets to create an anti-Miller sentiment.
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Well, it's not surpising that the media would be out for him. Three of the four major Toronto dailies (Toronto Sun, Globe and Mail, National Post) endorsed Stephen Harper in the last election - which is not surprising when you look at who owns them.

Interesting post ... I was quite perplexed over the weekend when I ran into a relative from out-of-town who seemed to have been reading all sorts of horrible things about Miller, and the strike, that seemed to have no basis in reality. I'm not sure why people from out-of-town seem so bothered by a strike that really seemed minor living in the city. Even on the news, there were all these shots of big piles of garbage ... you got the impression that everyone watching thought our streets were nothing but huge piles of garbage ... yet the streets themselves weren't too bad at all ... with at worst some overflowing city garbage cans. And yet when I asked my relative about the various issues, it was quite apparent he'd never support the positions that the opposition in council put forth, other than perhaps on contracting out.

There seems to be huge amounts of ignorance on the issues.

That's utterly bizarre they would poll non-Torontonians on the issue ...
 
I don't know where you guys are getting the idea that the Ipsos Reid poll showing a drop in Miller's support was populated by non-Torontonians. About five hundred Torontonians were polled, they didn't ask people in Moose Jaw what they thought of Miller.

From Global News:
The Ipsos-Reid poll of nearly 500 Torontonians was conducted two weeks after the municipal workers strike.
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Is there a link to the actual poll results? Normally these are available - the media reports all seem minimal.
 
I have to agree with somewhat with Northern Light. There is some thing that appears calculated about this poll. Not really the results*, but the question is interesting. Along with that, we had the media covering Simtherman's return from a canoe trip, just so he could say maybe he will run, on the same day Very backroomish to me.

* the results are consistent with council approval, so it would appear valid.
 
That seems out-of-sync with most of the rest of the polling industry. Canwest Global paid for it already ... generally one tries to make sure that everything is as transparent as possible.

Given the secrecy regarding the polling info, and Ipsos-Reid's reputation of late (they were the ones who came out with this warped poll in late August putting the Tories at 39% federally compared to 28% for the Liberals, and within a couple of days all the other polls put the gap of -1 to 4% instead of 11%), I really can't take too seriously; for all we know they did all their polling in English north of Lawrence.

And this IS CanWestGlobal we are talking about ... have you read the National Post recently? It's from another planet. I wouldn't be shocked to discover that they have shaped the poll to match their agenda.
 
nfitz said:
Given the secrecy regarding the polling info, and Ipsos-Reid's reputation of late (they were the ones who came out with this warped poll in late August putting the Tories at 39% federally compared to 28% for the Liberals, and within a couple of days all the other polls put the gap of -1 to 4% instead of 11%), I really can't take too seriously; for all we know they did all their polling in English north of Lawrence.
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What secrecy? Just because you don't want to pay for their product doesn't make them secretive. Anyways, trying to paint Ipsos Reid as some kind of bumbling conservative bagman is absurd. It makes no sense that the Canadian division of a Paris based market research firm would have some kind of, thus far unsubstantiated, bias against Miller. Fair enough, polling isn't an exact science, but complaining about bias with no evidence is just sour grapes.

nfitz said:
And this IS CanWestGlobal we are talking about ... have you read the National Post recently? It's from another planet. I wouldn't be shocked to discover that they have shaped the poll to match their agenda.
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This is a grassy knoll if I've ever seen one.
 
Whoaccio said:
It makes no sense that the Canadian division of a Paris based market research firm would have some kind of, thus far unsubstantiated, bias against Miller.
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No it wouldn't. But it would make sense for them to give the client what the client wants. i.e. phrase the question, the langauge of the question, the time of day, the parts of town ... and then keep the report private, so that the methodology isn't clear.
 
Whatever, alleging conspiracy because something doesn't agree with your (totally unsubstantiated) world views is absurd. Either read the polling methodology/data, or stop insinuating something you clearly aren't in a position to know anything about.

(Stop saying the report is private. It quite clearly isn't, you just don't want to pay to read it.)

EDIT: Even David Miller doesn't really object to the poll's results.
 
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