King of Kensington
Senior Member
Right now Tory is seen as the least offensive, everything for everybody candidate which I think explains why he has the highest approval rating - but can it last?
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Toronto turnout is usually lowest in municipal elections. The more relevant numbers are 53% voter turnout in 2010 compared to only 39% in 2006.Over 800,000 people didn't vote last time.
39 percent in 2006? Any reason for that? That's ugly.Toronto turnout is usually lowest in municipal elections. The more relevant numbers are 53% voter turnout in 2010 compared to only 39% in 2006.
Miller had token opposition in Jane Pitfield.
Right now Tory is seen as the least offensive, everything for everybody candidate which I think explains why he has the highest approval rating - but can it last?
I think that one of the reasons Tory has maintained high approval ratings is that he's never been in the lead. Chow had just as high approval ratings before her campaign started, but it's come down slightly since people started attacking her as the front runner.
Chow's campaign also reminds me a bit of Horwath's too. It's sort of an NDP devoid of dreaming anymore, while also of lower expectations about what government can do. She'll still probably get my vote, but 'uninspiring' about says it.
In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. They had different ways of achieving this, but their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered their people. Those dreams failed and today people have lost faith in ideologies. Increasingly, politicians are seen simply as managers of public life, but now they have discovered a new role that restores their power and authority. Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us: from nightmares. They say that they will rescue us from dreadful dangers that we cannot see and do not understand.
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much of this threat is a fantasy, which has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians.
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a fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.
I should be the core Chow voter. Young-ish, live and work downtown, I have a professional, unionised job. I bike, walk and take transit. I'm a progressive who usually votes NDP or occasionally Liberal.
But I am left uninspired by the Chow campaign.
Chow's campaign is strongly geared toward working moms. Some of this is a nice corrective after years of this demographic being neglected by Ford. I think Tory is dead wrong when he says that a municipal government can't do more to help with early childhood development and after school programs, and that's part of what is keeping me in the Chow camp despite my reservations.
I should be the core Chow voter. Young-ish, live and work downtown, I have a professional, unionised job. I bike, walk and take transit. I'm a progressive who usually votes NDP or occasionally Liberal.
But I am left uninspired by the Chow campaign. I prefer Soknacki and flirted with Ari Goldkind (before he turned out to be a bit of a kook) because they are both saying things that I agree with and needs to be done.
This is totally Adrian Dix all over again.
I can not stomach John Tory, that Mitt Romney, anti cyclist, anti-DRL, pro car candidate who looks to me as regressive as Ford, just not embarrasing. He's got the worst transporation plan of all of the major non-Ford candidates.
I think Chow's campaign has been precisely calibrated to take your vote for granted. She figures people like you (and me) will vote for her no matter what to stop Ford. I don't think she counted on Soknacki luring so many of these voters away. I think she'd have a lot more momentum if he wasn't in the race showing what her campaign COULD look like.
Chow's campaign is strongly geared toward working moms. Some of this is a nice corrective after years of this demographic being neglected by Ford. I think Tory is dead wrong when he says that a municipal government can't do more to help with early childhood development and after school programs, and that's part of what is keeping me in the Chow camp despite my reservations.