Conrad Black: The woman Toronto needs
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/09/25/conrad-black-sarah-thomson-the-woman-toronto-needs/
There is a strong natural desire to agree with other people who make their living, as I have the last few years, writing opinion pieces (though my cost of living has been unusually low — toothpaste made up about 10% of it when I was in the American Gulag). But there seems to be a strain of imperious political columnizing in Toronto from which I must constructively dissent.
It was with mounting astonishment that I read Bob Hepburn’s column in Thursday’s Toronto Star, as part of my crusade for reacquaintance with the quaint folkways of my native country. Hepburn called upon all candidates for mayor of Toronto to withdraw at once … except George Smitherman, a former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister who is the preferred mayoral choice of Ontario’s centrist establishment; and Rob Ford, a say-anything, populist city councillor who promises to rein in the heavy tax-and-spend pro-union policies of the outgoing David Miller administration. Hepburn’s reasoning was that Smitherman trailed Ford by over 20 points but was, according to the polls, from seven to 13 points ahead of Sarah Thomson, Joe Pantalone and Roco Rossi. And so the last three should withdraw to ensure that the anti-Ford vote would not be split. On this point, Hepburn drew a parallel to the 2000 U.S. presidential election, in which third-party candidate Ralph Nader siphoned off just enough left-wing votes in Florida to hand the state to George W. Bush — whom Hepburn described as “the worst U.S. president ever.â€
Being a certified teacher in American history from a prestigious arm of the U.S. federal government, I strained to deduce the parallel. George W. is a locker room, towel-snapping, loud-mouthed, frat-boy bonehead, whose chief qualification for high office was that he and his father consecutively survived childbirth. But the United States has had worse presidents, such as James Buchanan, who sat like a suet pudding while states purported to secede and the country slid into a civil war that took the lives of 700,000 Americans from among a population smaller than Canada’s today.
George W. was also better, to date, than his successor, Barack Obama, who forecasts a decade of trillion-dollar annual deficits and money-supply increases; is leading us like a rodeo rider into the second and bends-inducing dip of the economic crisis; and has grovelled to Iran and other rogue states.
Moreover, I believe Nader’s service in barring Al Gore from the White House actually was the man’s only notable public success since his attack on the Chevrolet Corvair nearly 50 years ago. Al Gore gave us corn as a fuel, causing famine in the Far East where it became too expensive and was no longer a viable food staple. He has described global warming as “settled science†and became a centimillionaire peddling his sci-fi horror stories of Old Testament floods, famines and infernos. As president, he would have been a disaster proactively happening, rather than merely waiting to happen in the laid-back George W. Bush manner.
Hepburn’s comparison is nonsense from a purely mathematical point of view. This is Toronto, not the U.S. electoral college; the highest vote wins it. And by that yardstick, the Hepburn candidate, Gore, would have won, since he won the popular vote in 2000. In any case, why should Smitherman be the one to pick up all the votes of the third to fifth candidates? The answer, I suppose, is that Smitherman meets what Hepburn would call “Star Values,†which is to say the same David Miller values that Toronto voters now abundantly reject.
Unfortunately, there are indications that one or more of the second-tier candidates may withdraw. If so, two should go in favour of the other, who could then mount a serious challenge. The Hepburn version of events was a Rossi camp rumour that Thomson is quitting, which, in accord with Star Values, Hepburn reprinted as sourced fact. In my view, it is Sarah Thomson who should be the mayor. (My son Jonathan Black has modestly assisted the Thomson campaign.) I urge her not to withdraw from the race and endorse another candidate, as she is claimed by Hepburn to be considering.
I don’t wish to sound like a school-teaching stickler in denigrating Rob Ford’s intellect, but anyone who says, as Mr. Ford did, that “They have other fish to fry beside feathering their own nest†is not fit for high public office. Smitherman is just a drop-out from the McGuinty economic miracle that has made Ontario a have-not province. Rossi and Pantalone are ineffectual panderers to right and left, respectively (though at some candidates’ meetings, they may have got their directions mixed). Sarah Thomson is the only one who has an original program, and is untainted by the gravy train Rob Ford abhors.
Sarah Thomson, Hepburn sermonizes excitedly, is running as a woman: “Can anyone figure out why she thinks she has a chance of winning? She gets media play because, honestly, she’s the only woman in the race, not because she’s qualified.â€
I would have thought this truth in political packaging refreshing. She is a woman, a mother, and not a priggish or Stepford version of her sex. She’s also a successful businesswoman and a peppy self-made person who would bring some panache and originality to the job. After eight years of government by ultra-green David Miller, the friend of the garbagemen and of those who have indecent fantasies about speed bumps, it’s time for a representative person who yet has some style and can deliver a program.
There is no more that is wrong with being a woman than there is anything wrong with the Hepburn white hope, Smitherman, overtly pitching to gays, Ford to the heavy-set Archie Bunkers, and Rossi and Pantalone to the right and left of the Italian community. The real question is where are the other women; and the answer is that they haven’t come forward because uptight gender-bothered stuffed shirts in the municipal media have ignored Thomson.
Hepburn grumbles that her only previous election was an unsuccessful try for alderman in Hamilton, Ont. This is a good thing. The best mayor we could have is a can-do, straight-talking woman who is not mired in the rancid bouillabaisse of municipal affairs, looks like a successful person and is one; has some flair and the energy of comparative youth; doesn’t look and sound and think like the “before†half of a 3 a.m. television commercial for weigh-loss or hair-growth nostrums and will shake things up and confer some fun on municipal affairs.
The fetid little in-group of city hall reporters has stonewalled the less familiar candidates. They aren’t the Electoral College; and they should open the race up instead of trying to shut it down. If, in a week or two, none of the second tier of candidates has moved too far, Rossi and Pantalone should pull out in favour of Thomson. Smitherman is a melting iceberg and Ford is a deflating gas balloon.
To be entirely serious, if it should happen that this is the choice Toronto ends up with, I can only hope that the city spends the next four years building a determination to do better next time. I remember Alan Lamport, Nathan Phillips, Bill Summerville and Phil Givens. They were substantial people who generally said sensible things, and they were mayor of a tank town that was never spoken of respectfully, anywhere. It was a symbol of drab appearance and social dullness, the Sunday blue laws, the impossibility of getting a drink, Hogtown. Now Toronto is Canada’s metropolis, hosts the world’s most glamorous people and periodically the world’s leaders. Whether it’s Sarah Thomson now, or not, this city will have to get back to the habit of electing mayors of distinction, at least, and preferably, of panache as well. Sarah Thomson could be a Boris Johnson in drag. Don’t quit and keep punching, Sarah! It works.
National Post
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