A Vote for Pantalone, A Vote for Rob Ford

Joey Pants!!!

They counted Miller out too.

It's good to see Joe in the lead here.  Yes Trinity-Spadina is Joe's home turf and probably the most progressive riding in Toronto but it's important to get the message out that he is the only progressive candidate.

socialdemocracynow wrote:

One thing I'll never understand is those who have benefited tremendously from their unions and David Miller AND are supporting Rob Ford so proudly with their front lawn signs..?

Those are the same folks who voted for Mike Harris because Bob Rae "betrayed" Ontario public sector unions, only to discover that "Mike Harris Days" are 365/year.

Cueball that's good news about Joey Pants and the sign demand - on Facebook a few of my friends are doing the misguided, "Hold your nose and vote for Smitherman," to which I reply, "If you vote for Pantalone, you don't have to hold your nose."

A silly question....who is the "we"  I am in the 9-5 cog-in-wheel to feed my family and pay my bills. 

In my daily toil, I drive around Scarborough a lot, and I'm seeing tons of Smitherman signs.  He had crews all over the first day signs could go up.  They are almost exclusively on public spaces, and I'm not seeing a lot of mayor signs on people's lawns, just councillors and trustees.  I've seen one Ford sign.  I think it has a lot to do with how the field commanders decide to deploy thier troops, and I'm assuming the Smitherman people just decided to start in the east.  I recall from my campaigns out in Oshawa, getting lawn signs up was a priority over public space signs.

I agree with Stockholm about the importance of the council races, it's the makeup of council which will determine what the next four years looks like.  Actually, the picture of Mayor Ford spending the next four years looking out at a roomful of hard lefties kinda tickles my fancy.

If anyone cares about the Oshawa race, ( I don't know why you would, I sure don't ) There's a bunch of men who all look the same, and a bunch of women who all look the same, and everyone's campaign literature reads pretty much the same. 

Roberteh wrote:

I think the question also lies beyond the vote...for a vote is just an individual statement of approval/disapproval.  Are we organized for what happens after the election?  Is there a viable social movement that would block Ford and bring forth the changes that we would like Pantaloneor any other candidate introduce...or do we unorganize and go back to the 9-5 cog-in-wheel - feeding the machine?  Hope is powerful, but, hope along will not change the world.

I entirely agree, Indeed one of the most important things about getting a strong Pantalone vote out is to prevent the continuance of an agenda aimed at privatization that attacks the few social institutions that are still able to resist corporate takeover of all public life.

Indeed, if we just look at one issue, the issue of the privatization of waste disposal. A vote for Ford or Smitherman projects the idea that privatization of curbside garbage pickup is something that has a broad mandate behind it. It actually doesn't matter which candidate wins in this case, and a close race between two right wing candidates, without a solid block of resistance will give the mayor, the council and the press all the ammunition it needs to say that the public vote unanimously for privitization, and cuts backs of all kinds.

Going forward, after the election allowing this to happen will only cause us long term damage.

True, but the real damage Rae did was to the activist core of the labour movement. This destroyed the ability of the union leadership to communicate with the membership and deliver it at the polls.

Joe should also be able to make gains if he clearly targets Smitherman, and plays to Ford voters who are usually left leaning but are voting against Smitherman for lack of alternatives. The fact that 25% of Ford's polled supporters say they usually vote NDP, says that Joe should be able to make gains here by getting out this sector of anti-Smitherman vote.

I think it says that people detest Smitherman and will vote against him if they have the option to do so. Making Joe an option as a real anti-Smitherman vote will bear fruit. Probably, Joe should stay away from going after Ford and concentrate on Smitherman.

Im sure the Star always takes polls, and if they would be favourable for Smitherman it would go on the front page. I would not rule out anyone at this point. 

Maybe Smitherman isn't getting signs up because people who plan to vote for him would be embarrassed have a big SMITHERMAN sign on their lawn?

Cueball wrote:

I think it says that people detest Smitherman and will vote against him if they have the option to do so. Making Joe an option as a real anti-Smitherman vote will bear fruit. Probably, Joe should stay away from going after Ford and concentrate on Smitherman.

I agree with this strategy - a lot of folks just don't know enough about Smitherman to detest him.  He needs more light shed on his loathsomeness for the sake of the people who aren't paying attention; ie, most of them.

I walked through Riverdale today - Pam McConnell's people have been pretty active with the signage.  Mayorally speaking, I saw one Rob Ford sign, tons of Smitherman signs, and not a single Pantalone sign.

In my neighbourhood, Parkdale High-Park, Gord Perks has been getting his signage around, but I've seen hardly any mayoral signs.

What I've noticed is that most of the antipathy to Smitherman is personal as opposed to substantive. By all accounts he is a singularly unpleasant person and he seems to have mistreated a lot of people over the years. That's tough if you work at City Hall and you might have to work with him as mayor. The other 99.99999999999999999999% of Torontonians don't ever have to interact personally with the mayor and don't care that he might not be a particularly nice person.

I suppose that the one way in which Smitherman is less bad than Ford is that because he's having to make such an effort to attract "progressive" voters in order to beat Ford (I see that even John Sewell is backing him now and apparently will be asked to chair a commission on municipal governance if Smitherman wins) - the "centre-left" becomes part of his constituency that he needs to appease and keep "in the tent". A Mayor Ford doesn't care what anyone to the left of him thinks because he will not owe his election to anyone except the rightwing crackpots who votes for him. he will have no IOUs etc...

Let's see the next round of polls - if Pantalone is in single digits - I guess it'll mean that the right outnumbers the left in Toronto 90% to 10%!

The thing i don't understand is why if both Ford and Smitherman are so unpleasant and despicable - the two candidates who seem reasonably likeable (Pantalone and Rossi) are being left in the dust? (In the case of Rossi, I think he has whacky ideas, but he seems like a nice enough person and I notice that he and Pantalone describe each other as their "second choice for mayor".

Its also ridiculous to try to claim that there is NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER between Ford and Smitherman. I agree that the differences are in some ways less than meets the eye - BUT Smitherman gets a B+ for his policies on diversity etc... in report card i just saw. Ford gets an F. Its the same story on all the different report cards issued by various interest groups. The usual pattern from people like Arts Vote or from environmental groups is that Pantalone will get an A- or a B+, Smitherman will get a B and Ford gets straight Fs on every single policy. Ford wants to cut all finding to Pride Day and thinks that all public money should be cut off from arts groups etc... Of course we all know that council will never go along with that - but i think that the symbolism of having a mayor of who is openly and unapologetically racist and homophobic would have consequences.

I see that Ford pledges to scrap the city's "Fair Wage Policy" that forces all contractors doing business with the city to pay their workers a living wage. Where do the other candidates stand on that? As far as I know, Ford is the only one who wants to do something that regressive.

Got a link for that or are you just fantasizing?

I don't need a link. I have a brain.

Platform policy 1: Garbage Collection: Putting Service First. Subcontract out curb side pickup with no-strike clauses.

Platoform policy 2: Supplier Diversity. Pretend you are doing the world a favour by making subcontractors sign "equitable" hiring practice policies.

Result: Non-white people hauling your garbage for cheap.

As I've said, I think Pantaloen is by far the best candidate and I'll still vote for him - even though as a campaigner I find him very uninspriing. But that doesn't mean that I have to buy into this absurd propaganda that everyone else is 100% equally bad. This is like those lunatics supporting Ralph Nader in 2000 who assured us that there was ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER between Al Gore and George W. Bush and that it would make ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER which of them was elected. I think we can all agree that Bush becoming President had consequences...

A mayor is just one vote on council, but he sets a tone a symbolizes a city...the thought of Ford representing Toronto for four years is nauseating to a degree of magnitude that goes far beyond anyone else. Smitherman would be bad - but he'd be largely a restoration of the Art Eggleton/June Rowlands way of doing business.

If John Tory were running I'd almost consider voting strategically for him against Smitherman - but comparing Tory to Ford is like comparing Robert Stanfied to Stockwell Day.

No, it's YOU who has no clue what's going on here and that is FINAL!! I said it therefore it must be so!

Cueball, I would love to see you admit, just once, that Pantalone is done. Can you say that? Actually, tell us his % of the vote so come election day we can compare.....

Its hard to know what's going on right now since its been a while since a poll was published - but we did see a poll showing Ford leading Smitherman by 24 points, followed by a poll showing the gap to be only 5% and since then sarah Thompson pulled out and endorsed Smitherman and taken John Tory's sons and a bunch of "red Tories" with her and now Smitherman has had some high profile endorsements from people like John Sewell and Joe Mihevc. I think that by any objective standard he's had a pretty good week and i wouldn't be surprised if he gained more ground - but we shall see.

The election seems to be evolving into a referendum on Ford and there still isn't much discussion about what the other candidates actually stand for. I think Smitherman will stagger across the finish line because he's "not Ford" and as a result he'll have a very weak mandate to do anything.

Wish there was poll. Here's my take. People want someone to come in and clean house - they want David Miller's broom, but they also want someone to actually use it. Ford has been consistently for 10 years now saying that there is waste and corruption at city hall and he'll "stop the gravy train." People believe him. He's riding that wave. Smitherman began campaigning on a strategy that his opponent would be John Tory. He got wallopped by the Ford message, and now he's campaigning that he'll root out the waste too, but in a more compassionate way. That message may have been fine 6 or 7 months ago, but now it sounds reactionary to Ford, and it's really too little too late anyway. Meanwhile, Pantalone is campaigning on Miller's record, a record people are clearly rejecting right now. I think Ford has it, unless there's major movement in the next poll, which I can't really see happening. And, although people are mad at city hall and want to send a message right now, they'll realize over the next four years that some of the programs they actually wanted will be gone. But they'll have sent the message....

That is the Liberal line. Most of it has already been proved false. But like Ford's campaign, the truth is not really relevant to Smitherman's campaign.

For example, I just talked to a Ford supporter who told me off the cuff that Miller did a good job. How does that fit in with your Toronto wants a change line? How does the fact that a poll in September showed that Miller would beat all comers express the idea that Torontonians want a change. How does the fact that a recent poll gave Miller a 60% approval rating fit in your idea that Toronto is jonesing for a change?

The truth is that it is the Liberals who want a change. They want in, and they want an independent city governments out, and their attempt to play on the dissatisfaction of the minority has unleashed the Ford phenomena, with Smitherman/MCgunity playing the stand in for the "establishment" to be thrown out.

Do you have a link to that recent phantom poll that everyone talks about and no one has seen? These were the polls that led Miller to not seek reelection, and, it seems, John Wright was bang on, Smitherman or no Smitherman.

A drastic shift in public support has sent Mayor David Miller's approval ratings plummeting to record lows.

"I've been doing this for 20 years in the city," said Ipsos-Reid pollster John Wright. "I have never seen political numbers like this, ever."

A poll conducted exclusively for Global News found the Mayor's approval rating is an abysmal 29%. Toronto City Council, as a whole, fares even worse at just 27%.

The Ipsos-Reid poll of nearly 500 Torontonians was conducted two weeks after the municipal workers strike.

In a one-on-one interview with Global News, the Mayor questioned the timing of the survey.

"I think you did a poll immediately after a really unpopular and unnecessary strike, and (the numbers) reflect that," said Miller.

While Miller dismissed the numbers, they could prove problematic.

The next municipal election is little more than a year away, and Wright warns the city is hungry for change.

"(Torontonians) basically want to clean house," he said.

"They want the mayor and the city council gone."

The numbers may also play into the hands of potential mayoral contenders, including Deputy Premier George Smitherman, who Tuesday suggested he's considering a run for Mayor in 2010.

The poll asked voters what they would like to see happen in the next municipal election.

79% said its time for someone else to be chosen as mayor.

When asked about the results, Miller again responded that "after a strike, nobody is surprised that people are concerned."