Another Toronto municipal election thread

Quote:

Well, one is breaking the law and putting people at risk of getting killed, and the other isn't.

Okay, that's a difference, but is it a significant difference? Does it really tell you something about an individual's ability to perform their job? Should every person who's been pulled over for a DUI lose their job, for example? How, specifically, does it relate to the job of "politician" in a way that lying and cheating do not?

I'm not sure that it should make a difference to his campaign, but it does. I think he's done.

Michelle wrote:

The 6:30 a.m. news on Metro Morning was basically a teaser, talking about how a sex scandal had broken about Giambrone, where he was involved in an "inappropriate relationship" with a "young woman". 

In fairness, Michelle, these are being reported as Giambrone's own words - so what were they supposed to say?

Anyway, unless I've missed something, Giambrone is stating that he never had sexual relations with that woman. As long as he sticks to that formula, he should come out of this like the last guy who said that.

They kept repeating "young" again and again, without clarifying.  I doubt Giambrone did that.

As for not admitting to having sex with her...yeah, pretty dumb.  And yes, I can see where the naked ambition can be a turn-off.  I voted for him when I lived in his ward, because I don't really care whether he's nakedly ambitious or not - I figured that all that ambition would probably make him a pretty hard-working councillor, and I was right.  I don't have to become buddies with the guy to vote for him.

Now Giambrone is insisting that he's staying in the race despite these revaltions. What planet is this guy on? Can't he read the writing on the wall???

I guess politicians are not like the rest of us - look at John Edwards running for president despite having a closet full of skeletons.

If there is ANY scenario whereby all of this leads to a positive outcome for Giambrone - please tell me what it is. I keep wondering who is going to donate any money to him? Who is going to be willing to knock on doors or make phone calls for him? Who? Who? When it gets to a point where you become an object of ridicule and where people are embarrassed to say they support you - its time to step aside and let someone else fill the vacuum.

So this is what I can piece together.

NOW magazine writes a glowing article on Giambrone and erroneously claims he's gay.

Giambrone "laughs over" the story, light-heartedly corrects the record but then goes a step further and makes public the fact that he's in a relationship with a woman named Sarah. Until this point no one had known, or particularly cared, who if anyone Giambrone was seeing.

The day after that Giambrone stages romantic dinner with Sarah at a restaurant and arranges for a Toronto Sun photographer to take their picture for the next day's paper. In doing so, he misses his date with his other girlfriend and messages her to check out the Sun the next day.

At his campaign launch Giambrone stereotypically announces his candidacy with his "life partner" Sarah at his side.

Hurt and humiliated his other girlfriend eventually goes to the Star.

Radwanski is right, this is Giambrone's own fault for cynically trying to use his relationship with Sarah (real or not) for image purposes... or as he told Lucas in a *text message* on Dec 27, "You know I will be announcing I have a partner... It is someone named Sarah (McQuarrie), who I've been involved with in the past. It is important for the campaign."

Really? Why exactly was it "important for the campaign"? Either Giambrone felt so insecure about being called gay that he needed to put the spotlight on the fact that he has a girlfriend (or pretend McQuarrie was his girlfriend, whether he was lying when he told Lucas that her relationship with McQuarrie was pretend or lying when he says it's real, I don't know and don't particularly care) or he saw some sort of political advantage in contrasting his relationship with a woman against Smitherman's relationship with a man. Either way, fairly sorry stuff.

And of course had Giambrone not been driven either by insecurity or cynicism to create a public image of himself as a guy in a committed relationship with a female "life partner" then his second girlfriend wouldn't have found out about his first and Giambrone's sleaziness towards women would have remained a private matter.

While I still don't really see why this is a news story I can't muster any sympathy for Giambrone. He's brought this onto himself.