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What Toronto’s Election Means for Progressive Viability

As many have heard, John Tory, the mainstream right wing candidate, won convincingly in Toronto and Olivia Chow came in third place, even doing worse than Doug Ford (brother of the famous crack-smoking Rob Ford.)  Much hand wringing has ensued that progressive just can’t win elections in Toronto.

While it’s true that Toronto is hard for progressives to win, which is why Toronto was amalgamated with the suburbs by Mike Harris’s Conservative provincial government, this election tells us only one thing about progressives ability win in Toronto.

Pick a better candidate.

Chow was the polling leader at the start, she lost that lead.  Now I like Chow a lot, because I saw her at work when she was a city councilor, but Tory was a better candidate: he’s just a better speaker, as he spent years as a radio host, and Chow, who is excellent in small groups, is a bad speaker.  The explanation doesn’t have to go much further than this.  In small elections, when she just needs a riding, and can knock on doors, Chow is a great candidate.  In a large election, not so much.

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13 Comments

  1. QYQYQY

    Chow transit platform was pure poison. (Tory’s was too, but halfway through the campaign he dropped it and replaced it with the hastily slapped-together “SmartTrack” proposal.)

    She herself didn’t seem to understand it–consider her bizarre promise to replace the Scarborough RT with “something like the Vancouver Skytrain” . (Note to non-Canadian readers–the Scarborough RT and Skytrain use identical technologies.)

    It is nothing short of surreal to see the “left” candidate running to right of both “right” candidates on the issue that every poll put as the top concern among the voting public.

  2. QYQYQY

    Meant to type “Chow’s transit platform”, sorry.

  3. Ghostwheel

    What’s wrong with people that they need to swayed by oratory like leaves in the wind?

  4. different clue

    We go to election with the electorate we have, not the electorate we wish we had or would have preferred to have had at some later time.

  5. It’s like I’ve said repeatedly before: The Left needs to learn how to sell things. Because the present-day Western left is suffused with a certain kind of Puritan belief in the unity of a very strict sort of moral probity in political mechanics, it will always be at a further disadvantage relative to its existing intrinsic economic ones (much less backing from the economic elite).

    “Be the change you want to see.” Nope, not gonna work.

  6. Old people are bad at running government, move to someplace more liberal and complaining about its thoughts with gusto.

  7. JustPlainDave

    Historically, a non-trivial part of Olivia’s electoral strength has been a supply of supporters who would turn out in bulk and vote for her basically because they were told to. I lived in the riding for many years and I saw it up close. It certainly didn’t win the elections for her by itself, but it provides a very nice cushion when one can count on clearing a very high percentage of numerically significant demographics without much investment. She has many attractive qualities as a candidate – I’ve voted for her a number of times both municipally and federally – but that advantage doesn’t work on the scale of the GTA. This is particularly so given how effective conservatives have become at electioneering in demographics traditionally considered Liberal for the taking.

    Beyond that, I have a strong feeling that when the stories start filtering out, we’ll find that the campaign was out competed from a technical/organizational standpoint.

  8. David Z

    There was another progressive in the election early on and that was David Soknacki. He was not the the celebrity candidate that Chow was. However David had great proposals for the city yet the media and other progressives weren’t prepared to get behind him. Speaking to many people, they all felt that he was a man worthy to lead chose not to support him in fear of vote splitting. Many moderates would have supported him also but that support went to Tory thus causing Soknacki to drop out of the race. By fearing the boogy man (Ford) cost the city an opportunity of considering a candidate with much more to ofter than the three leaders.

  9. “…Tory was a better candidate: he’s just a better speaker, as he spent years as a radio host, and Chow, who is excellent in small groups, is a bad speaker.”

    I’d like to see smarter people than me think about the structure of democracy, and propose solutions. It can’t be best for high oratory and star quality (which can be there without heart or competence) to be necessary qualities for high office.

  10. Ian Welsh

    This has been a problem right back to Athens. It’s at the heart of much of Plato’s whining about demagoguery and the mob.

    While certainly Chow always benefited from running a riding with a ton of Chinese before (let’s just say it), she did poll as leader at the beginning. She lost that lead. The question is how. Watching her speak and then Tory offers much of the answer, I think.

  11. Dan H

    “clark PERMALINK
    October 29, 2014
    “…Tory was a better candidate: he’s just a better speaker, as he spent years as a radio host, and Chow, who is excellent in small groups, is a bad speaker.”
    I’d like to see smarter people than me think about the structure of democracy, and propose solutions. It can’t be best for high oratory and star quality (which can be there without heart or competence) to be necessary qualities for high office.”

    Anarchism, direct democracy etc. High office is the problem. We LOVE to load the gun. Vote in a shooter, blame HIM if he misses. Full disclosure: I’ve fallen off the misanthropic cliff.

  12. Jeff Wegerson

    The Harold Washington campaign for mayor in Chicago was a classically well run successful progressive campaign. Strong candidate, strong speaker, and an actual ad hoc campaign machine was created. But we could not have won if we had had to campaign for a ton of suburban vote as well. Then too we have never been able to duplicate it since. So I have no advice for Toronto.

    Now for an OT rant:

    —-

    Jian Ghomeshi. The rich or famous have different rules. Like pre-nuptials. So where’s the signed notarized consent form, Jian? Hunh? Oh you didn’t know you even needed one did you. Nobody else needs one, right? And that’s where I came in, the famous have different rules.

    What we have here is spousal abuse. The problem is that society these days does not handle dual victimization very well. Was Jian a victim of child abuse? Interesting that we can even pose the question. Abusers often were abused. I once tried to claim that because I was spanked as a child I suffered child abuse. But because it was less than ten times and never left a mark I think I was scoffed at. But the standard now is zero spanking. Actually zero punishment. Logical and natural consequences yes. But punishment, no. So the question remains, was Jian abused as a child? And by those standards almost certainly. Especially as a boy. He was also almost certainly insufficiently socialized. Almost all, if not all, boys are insufficiently socialized. imho. Girls tend to be over-socialized.

    Lets return to the spousal abuse idea. That’s what is claimed here when we strip away the “rough sex” stuff. Abused spouses are notorious for not leaving at the first or even the early occurrences. And the abusers? It’s pretty clear that they tend to be at least insufficiently socialized and often have actual mental deficiencies. Keep in mind that sick societies reproduce sick members. So don’t get your panties in a bunch here that I am singling out Jian here. All us guys are in this boat.

    So how should Jian have handled this. Of course he should have demanded sufficient socialization as a child. That would have given him enough listening skills to hear and understand and respond to his partner’s communications. Especially as a BDSM Dominator you need those skills in spades.

    But now all he can do is dial it back, drop the defensiveness, and ask for help in understanding where he went wrong.

  13. @jeffwegerson

    “Of course he should have demanded sufficient socialization as a child.” i’m curious to read how you think a child can do this.

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