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Next Mayor of Toronto?

Hipster Duck said:
That certainly sounds plausible.

I hate to say it, but in a city like Toronto it may be necessary to run another male, straight candidate. That's because Toronto is populated by a lot of new immigrants, which means either a low voter turnout or a more socially conservative turnout, and a turnout that's biased toward an aging, white, suburban electorate*.

In a bizarre twist, a city like Houston, Texas was able to elect an openly gay mayor. This is due to similar circumstances: a majority Hispanic and black working class/underclass electorate that didn't turn out (or was discouraged from voting) meant that the remaining urban whites - who are generally quite educated and progressive, even in Texas - tipped the ballot.

*About this electorate. I don't think they're necessarily Ford fanatics, but the kinds of issues that big city mayors are pushing these days like urban visions, livability and tax-supported public initiatives do not resonate with them. When you live in a suburban municipality you don't use public services like parks or recreation facilities or treat the city like an extension of your living room. Your backyard is your public space; your living room is your living room. You basically just view the city as this entity that keeps your cul de sac plowed in the winter and picks up your garbage every week. If they do those two things properly, you may not even care that much about your tax bill.
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Hipster Duck, absolutely no one has articulated as well as you have, here, on the two solitudes. No one.
 
Hipster Duck said:
*About this electorate. I don't think they're necessarily Ford fanatics, but the kinds of issues that big city mayors are pushing these days like urban visions, livability and tax-supported public initiatives do not resonate with them. When you live in a suburban municipality you don't use public services like parks or recreation facilities or treat the city like an extension of your living room. Your backyard is your public space; your living room is your living room. You basically just view the city as this entity that keeps your cul de sac plowed in the winter and picks up your garbage every week. If they do those two things properly, you may not even care that much about your tax bill.
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I think that's may be true to some extent. I know people who voted for Ford in the last election even though they thought he was a dolt. However, it should be noted that these people weren't even in the burbs. They lived in central Toronto. I think their bigger concern was the fact that some councillors are trying to expand the role of city council and are losing sight of the basics like garbage collection, etc., and they're costing taxpayers more in the process. Whether that's true or not is a different question, but I think there is some truth to it, as exemplified by the more recent shark fin soup fiasco.

BTW, the best Globe and Mail comment that comes to mind is one that was posted after an article came out on the shark fin soup fight. The comment simply said "Can't I just get my potholes filled?!?". I think that summed up things quite nicely.
 
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TonyV said:
Hipster Duck, absolutely no one has articulated as well as you have, here, on the two solitudes. No one.
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Thanks, Tony.

I think that progressive mayoral candidates need to understand that there are, probably, around 300-400,000 members of that aging, white suburban electorate I mentioned and that they determine elections in this city. I also think that we can implement many of our most progressive agendas - the things that most of us on this forum advocate for - if only we'd throw these people a bone every once in a while. Like Eug said, they're little things like filling potholes or maybe increasing leaf pickup from every other week to every week. If the City can do this, I think this electorate would be willing to look the other way when it comes to progressive taxation to fund transit expansion or rolling out bike lanes or any of the other big ticket urban items.
 
A winning strategy this term will likely be conservative-centrist, supported by conservative media.

Ford Nation needs to be convinced that Ford isn't really the only conservative out there, and these weeks have shown that Ford Nation clings to Ford in the absence of any other alternative candidate (the devil we know). The Star did state that Stintz and Tory were not cutting into Ford's numbers, but this is really based on name recognition alone, of which Ford has a clearly superiority. At this point though, it's still too early to say how strong Ford Nation will be once a viable conservative alternative emerges and releases a platform.
 
I prayed that John Tory would run back in 2010 as he would have saved us from the Ford circus that we've suffered ever since, and I'm still convinced that Tory would be a fantastic mayor, perhaps one of the best Toronto has ever had (certainly not difficult considering our long history of lousy mayors). Politically I'm a classic centrist, and if he runs, he's got my vote. I absolutely loathe Ford, and Chow is way too left wing for my liking (we really need to get away from backlash candidates), although I think Stintz would be decent.
 
jje1000 said:
A winning strategy this term will likely be conservative-centrist, supported by conservative media.
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I agree... but I don't know who that would be. John Tory doesn't count. He comes across (to me, but apparently not Towered) as the WTF?!? candidate with the faith-based school funding thing. Yeah, I'm harping on this again, but I'd think he'd be skewered on this by the other candidates.

A liberal centrist supported by centrist media could also work, but I also don't know who.
 
I don't know about the Mayor's state of flux - but I get a bad feeling that the rumored Hudak Leadership Review campaign is being spawned by Doug Ford.
 
I agree. People who claim that Chow is just the left-wing version of Ford are not taking into account their respective records as councilors. As a councilor, Ford was always the odd one out, even among the right-wing. People predicted that he would have trouble building support for his agenda, and it came true.

Chow, though she was on the far left of council, was known as a pragmatist who built consensus across the ideological divide. That's why she held committee chairs even under Mel Lastman. In fact, she might be better at gaining support than Miller, who was known to be a tyrant by the end of his tenure.

I don't think we should equate consensus building with ideological centrism. I think consensus builders can exist all over the ideological spectrum. Doug Holiday would probably be a great consensus builder. On the other hand, there are some centrists who just turn people off and might end up getting attacked from both sides.
 
Silence&Motion said:
Chow, though she was on the far left of council, was known as a pragmatist who built consensus across the ideological divide.
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What does it mean to be a far left councilor? These terms, left and right are thrown about, but how do they apply to Toronto city government?

It can't be just about spending, as under Ford we've seen massive increases in the TPS cost, and my taxes have never been higher.
 
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