Toronto municipal election 2010

Walker has always struck me as a curmudgeonly contrarian who tries to be fiercely independent of whoever he perceives as "the establishment". He was starting to lean left during the dying days of Lastman's term, even going so far as to co-sponsor a motion of censure against Mel with Sandra Bussin. He supported Miller during the early part of his first term, but it was only a matter of time before Walker found some real or perceived Miller shortcoming to get righteously indignant about, and he has been a pretty reliable right of centre vote since.

It's starting to look like Smitherman will not run. The combination of the e-health scandal plus Miller's surprise resignation has pretty much killed his mojo plus his raison d'etre for a campaign (I think he counted on positioning himself as a viable middle of the road alternative in an anti-incumbent campaign).

It's still early, but I'll go out on a limb and predict 4 major candidates for Mayor in 2010:

1. John Tory

2. Karen Stintz (soak up the right of Tory vote)

3. Adam Giambrone (he really should NOT get into this, but I have a feeling he will)

4. Shelly Carroll (has not expressed an interest yet, but is being thrown into the mix by most of the punditry -- Smitherman's likely abstention from the race gives her the Liberal vote plus a healthy slice of the centre-left).

And the winner is?

I suspect that you will not see Giambrone and Carroll both running. it will be one or the other. With Smitherman out of the picture - someone not on the list could ytake a shot. Some people talk about former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray as well

As I've said before, i think that if Giambrone runs it will not be because anyone thinks he can actually win (though strannger things have happened). I think he would probably be thinking in terms of wanting to exit from municipal politics, gain more name recognition and maybe run in a future provincial or federal election for the NDP. That's just my theory. I just don't see another downtown New Democrat being elected mayor unless the race is such a five way free-for-all that someone can win with 25% of the vote.

Who knows.

Any names floating around for council that we should be worried about?

I think comparisons between Giambrone and Layton are a bit premature. Layton (and Chow) had put in many years on council and had much to show for it. Moving "up" made sense. Yes, the TTC has moved forward and Giambrone deserves some credit for that. But I can't think of a lot more that would qualify him to run for mayor or to "move up". I'm sure there are things but they haven't necessarily been very high profile. He needs more experience and accomplishments under his belt and should probably stay where he is. 

I think that Joe Mihevc on the other hand, has got the experience, qualifications, smarts and coalition-building expertise to make an excellent mayor. However, winning is another story and I'd hate to see him lose and for his council seat go to someone on the right. 

I agree that she has the best chance of any 'progressive' candidate. But it's far from a slam dunk for her Assuming she announces her intent to run, she'll have to address the following deficits:

1. To date, she has received considerably less media attention than Tory,  Giambrone or even Stintz (who has assiduously courted the centre right media and radio call in show crowd). As a result, her name recognition is a lot lower. My own non-random, non scientific poll of Toronto friends give me a blank, Shelley Who? stare whenever I mention Carroll as a possible mayor. But they've all heard of the other aspirants. She'll have to do a lot of work to raise her profile. However...

2. Her profile may well be raised in a negative way during the 2010 city budget, which will likely prove to be a very nasty, drawn out day of reckoning where unpalatable choices around tax increases and spending cuts have to be made. As chair of the budget committee, Carroll will have to navigate  very carefully to minimize the attacks that will come her way from both the left and right if she chooses to run for mayor.

3. As Royson James notes, she was likely mulling a run under more favourable circumstances in 2014. That would have given her four more years to build her profile and put some distance between herself and the Miller regime.

None of these barriers are intractable, but they will require some work on her part to address.

So what about council? Who's leaving and who is staying. It looks like Walker an Ootes are leaving and so could Pantalone, Rae and Moscoe. what ya all think?

Michael Feldman might pack it in -- think he's pushing 80 or close to it.

Quote from the above link. Gives an idea of which seats may be in play next year:

In response to a Globe and Mail survey, 36 of 44 councillors said they plan to run again next year. Six were either undecided or non-committal: Case Ootes, Kyle Rae, Mike Feldman, Karen Stintz, Ron Moeser and Michael Walker.

Two councillors, Howard Moscoe and Mike Del Grande, refused to take part. "I'm not at liberty to say right now," Mr. Del Grande said.

For those of us who don't live in Toronto are all councillors elected in ward or is there a mixture of Ward and At-Large Councillors like we have here in Saint John?

I just read that rightwing crackpot Karen Stintz has now announced that she won't run for mayor of Toronto either...the plot thickens.

I don't think its about avoiding a rightwing split since its not clear who she would split the vote with. The fact is that to run for mayor you need to personally raise about $2.5 million and you need to have some sort of organization in place across 44 wards. She may have wisely realized that it was just not going to happen.

Mammoliti promises to be the Nunziata of 2010 - another populist crackpot who is probably just pretending to run to get some publicity and who will then drop out and run again for city council. His main policy planks are to have a red light district, to open as many casinos as possible and to sell of transit lines to private companies who want to get "naming rights" (as if McDonald's will pay three billion for a new subway line in exchange for it being called the "McDonald's line"). He's a joke.

why would she be?

I predict that John Tory will throw his hat in the ring for the mayor's race. He's getting 15 hours a week of free (subtle) advertising as a radio talk show host.