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Rob Ford's Toronto

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RC8 said:
God, what a horrible election that was. Joe Pantalone was the only one of the three candidates with a decent curriculum but was unpalatable to just about anyone other than highly educated downtowners.
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Did he even appeal to them? It felt like he got votes for simply not being Rob Ford or George Smitherman. Pantalone seemed uninspiring. Did he even have any idea other than what Miller had already promised? It seemed to me he was simply running on what Miller had done, and had promised, rather than anything new.

I'm sure he'd have been a competent administrator. But he didn't strike me as inspiring or leadership material. But that's just my impression.

It really was a terrible group of candidates. I'm sure if there was a single quality candidate, (Tory, Liberal, or NDP), he would have easily beaten them all.
 
I'm a highly educated downtowner, and Pantalone held no appeal for me. I held my nose and voted because there wasn't much choice, but I sure wasn't voting for Ford.
 
I think had downtowners with one or more university degrees undemocratically picked one of those 3 candidates to run the city Pantalone would have been the one. That's not to say he particularly appealed to them, but that's the only demographic that would have picked him over the other 2, I think.
 
RC8 said:
I think had downtowners with one or more university degrees undemocratically picked one of those 3 candidates to run the city Pantalone would have been the one. That's not to say he particularly appealed to them, but that's the only demographic that would have picked him over the other 2, I think.
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So, a university degree renders the holder stupid, especially if they live downtown. I have noticed that effect too.
 
Pantalone's problem, in the end, was that he was little other than a "placeholder", after Giambrone blew it. He was fine on a ward-councillor and mayoral-executive power-broker; but as an actual mayoral candidate, he was wan--and as a lot of people said, his campaign had a cast of "farewell tour" about it.

And don't forget that his vote, such as it was, was suppressed by huge swaths of the "NDP left" holding its nose on behalf of Smitherman, instead, anything to stop the Ford juggernaut...
 
Pantalone was Miller lite and came across as arrogant and holier-than-thou. Smitherman had the arrogance down too, along with the history of angry belligerence. Sarah Thompson seemed like a nutcase with zero political experience. I can't put my finger on what was wrong with Rocco Rossi, but for some reason no one (including myself) wanted to vote for him. No need to point out Ford's flaws....anyone who's been paying attention for the last 741 pages will have read them about a thousand times. There wasn't a single candidate worth voting for. I think everyone save for the fanatics of Ford Nation were holding their nose during that vote.
 
ttk77 said:
There wasn't a single candidate worth voting for. I think everyone save for the fanatics of Ford Nation were holding their nose during that vote.
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+1.

That having been said, I still think we ended up with the worst possible mayor. However, he was/is so bad, he hasn't been able to do anything in particular, so it's been a bit of a stall pattern for the Mayor, with little harm except delays of transit improvements for the rest of us.
 
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Riverdale Rink Rat said:
+1.

That having been said, I still think we ended up with the worst possible mayor. However, he was/is so bad, he hasn't been able to do anything in particular, so it's been a bit of a stall pattern for the Mayor, with little harm except delays of transit improvements for the rest of us.
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Basically you've summed it up pretty succinctly. That same old '"loss of / waste of" Toronto's time theme' keeps popping up. Wait. Council learned to flex its collective muscle and reign Ford in, so it's not a total loss or waste, huh, in terms of this mayorlty being a learning experience for all of us who care about this city's trajectory.
 
RC8 said:
God, what a horrible election that was. Joe Pantalone was the only one of the three candidates with a decent curriculum but was unpalatable to just about anyone other than highly educated downtowners.
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I think you're right about that. What always struck me about that election was that the left had no populist candidate to draw in lower-income, left-leaning voters. Although Pantalone does have a populist streak, he was seen as an establishment Millerite (at least among that small part of the electorate who even knew who he was in the first place).

During the election several lower-income NDP voters I spoke with were sympathetic to Ford. They were very cynical about City Hall (Pantalone), and Queen's Park (Smitherman), and just wanted someone to clean house. Even if they weren't comfortable with Ford's conservatism, they loved his populism.

I think this is why Olivia Chow tends to do well against Ford in the polls. Like Layton, I think she appeals to left-leaning populists (you know, the ones that associate riding a bicycle to work with being poor rather than being an elitist). Thus, she potentially stands to capture a group of voters who might have gone to Ford or just sat out in the last election.
 
RC8, What a bunch of elitist clap trap. The irony of Jane Jacobs warning of credentialism rings true in your comments. You should feel free to ignore her warnings though, she only had a high school education. Do you ever wonder how anyone could have sided with her over Robert Moses, with his PhD?
 
Jane Jacobs was too busy working during the Great Depression in the 30s, but even then she took university courses that interested her from Columbia for a couple of years. Back then finishing high school was equivalent to one of today's undergraduate degrees.

Comparing that to Ford, a millionaire who inherited his daddy's company and dropped out of university twice in the 80s, is quite facetious.

Smitherman's curriculum was poor not just because he dropped out of highschool and whatnot, but because he was an ex-addict riddled with scandals who had worked mainly as an attack dog for the liberal party. He had nothing going for him that suggested he would make a great mayor, and his campaign failed to rectify this. He was hugely unappealing, even to most of his voters.
 
What does this have to do with Ford or Smitherman? My comments were directed at you. Maybe all your degrees obstructed that from you.
 
RC8 said:
Defensive much? Spell it out for me, please. What did I say that was elitist?
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Hmmm...

Joe Pantalone was the only one of the three candidates with a decent curriculum but was unpalatable to just about anyone other than highly educated downtowners.
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I think had downtowners with one or more university degrees undemocratically picked one of those 3 candidates to run the city Pantalone would have been the one
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