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Woodbridge_Heights said:
^^ Of topic but yes I've had the same experience. I tend to lean towards socially progressive (left) but Centre-CentreRight fiscally (i.e. budgets should be balanced, taxes should be minimized as best possible, yet still provide social services and a social safety net, and keeping public assets public). Yet I've found myself to the right of posters here numerous times
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I used to describe myself as "socially liberal and fiscally conservative" and in a sense I still am, but I think it's kind of a facile position to take and it inevitably leads to populist candidates who cut vital programs to justify tax freezes that really don't do much.

Let's face it - we don't really want a 'fiscal conservative'. A fiscal conservative would never build a new transit line. We want a good fiscal manager. There's an important distinction. The idea that there's a sect of liberals out there who just love spending money with no regard for their bottom line is a myth.

If I've become more left as I've gotten older it's because I look for candidates with real long-term vision for the city/province/country and not simply those who might reduce my tax bill by a hundred dollars.
 
I'd consider myself a supporter of Giambrone, and am definitely disappointed by this. It was indefensible behaviour. At the same time, I don't think it affects Adam's ability to be mayor, or how he would perform in the job. As Northern Light noted, many of our most successful leaders have had turbulent personal lives. I still feel that Giambrone is the mayor who would build the city I want to live in, and is by far the best of the current candidates. Whether he can pull a Clinton and recover from all this is now the question.
 
According to a person I know in the campaign, the feeling is that many people are ready to jump off the ship but nobody's brave enough to be the first to jump. Giambrone's campaign is going to sink like a rock once the first few people abandon it.

Adam is putting on a brave face telling his supporters that it's good that he cleared out his skeletons right from the start. All the bad news with the TTC and now this are out of the way many months before the election.

... I think he's forgetting that he's most likely lost his "political asset" Sarah and a lot of his supporters don't want to be seen backing him after this. I think the chance of his campaign lasting until October is less than 10%.
 
SimonP said:
At the same time, I don't think it affects Adam's ability to be mayor, or how he would perform in the job. As Northern Light noted, many of our most successful leaders have had turbulent personal lives. I still feel that Giambrone is the mayor who would build the city I want to live in, and is by far the best of the current candidates. Whether he can pull a Clinton and recover from all this is now the question.
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Clinton's not the best role model here. No question he was a brilliant politician and a smart and well-intentioned president but his lack of judgement and self-control seriously undermined his agenda. Ask how much he accomplished in his second term because of the distractions caused by his personal behaviour. As a progressive, would you want some tawdry sideshow sidelining the initiatives your dream candidate capmpaigned on?

Any sane left-liberal will want Giambrone out of the race ASAP.
 
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Anyone whom is willing to use another person as a prop, in order to further there own position, thinks much to highly of themselves and lacks any integrity. Once Sara was put on the stage, the significance of this was cast in stone.

Giambrone is an ass.
 
Is Joe Pantalone the only remaining left leaning candidate now? I really wanted to support Giambrone and a part of me still wants to, but at this point, I think he has very little chance of winning and I don't want to back a loser.

A new candidate needs to jump in to fill the void or those of us looking for a progressive will have to move closer towards the centre to Smitherman.
 
Best escape strategy?

The more I think about this, the more I realize that Giambrone has one narrow option to save his political career:

1 - End his Mayoral campaign

2- Run for his seat in council. He's very popular in his ward and by October, this issue will have fizzled if he can get out of the city spotlight and focus on person to person contact with the constituents in his ward.

3- Spend the next 9 months working hard to improve the TTC. Have something to show for it to keep the job when the next mayor takes office.

4- Run for Mayor in 2014 as he originally planned.
 
Given the impending Giambrone implosion, I have a feeling Smitherman might be tailoring at least part of his message to be "lefty friendly" and sort of portray himself as the best progressive candidate you never had. Like - I might not be perfect, but you bet I am better than <insert right candidate name here> in upholding your interests...heck I am even gay afterall.

AoD
 
Smitherman is my choice of the moment. The wing-nut gallery is too eager to grasp for wedge issues and polarize the electorate. Rossi, for example, is betting all his chips on the suburbs, so at best, he will be liked by half the city, and hated by the rest.
 
Smitherman is seemingly following a Chretien-like strategy, playing to the centre and presenting himself as a calm centre against chaotic left and right flanks. He shouldn't have any trouble.

The NDP must be wondering if they can find a new flagbearer for Toronto, though. Pantalone is kind of dead in the water.
 
Smitherperson survived the admission that he used recreational drugs, so I don't see while Giamboner can't survive the admission that he used recreational teenagers.
 
I don't think Giambrone was with McQuarrie for "Political reasons." I think it's something he told a naive girl to try and give a reason for her to continue to screw him. He probably thought she would buy it, and really if you're a 31 year old politician and you're fooling around with a 19 year old, you probably think you can find quite a few different excuses that she would be naive enough to buy simply because she wouldn't have a clue about politics.

Frankly, I don't really care much about any of this. I'm not concerned about the girl knowing about the fare hike either. Has no one here ever provided their significant other with information from work that they technically weren't supposed to share? When you go home and your partner asks "so what went on at work today?" you say "stuff..." like you're a 15 year old high school student speaking to their mom? Sharing rather trivial (and to me, that's what the fare hike was, really) information with your significant other (and for all we know, Giambrone saw the 19 year old as his significant other as much or more than Sarah) seems to me to be a norm in any relationship. I know many of you will disagree with this point, but I don't think simply because someone shares something trivial with someone else, that it means he's likely to share things that you ABSOLUTELY shouldn't be sharing with anyone.

As for fabricating an email, I have difficulty believing Giambrone himself was behind it, and that it wasn't just a staffer trying to go above and beyond his duty and save the campaign. I would think Giambrone would want to see what was in the email before it was given to the Star. Perhaps I'm wrong, I don't know, but he seems like a bright enough guy that he wouldn't let someone who didn't even know the girl's proper name do something as important as that.

If Giambrone stays in the campaign I'll continue to listen to what he has to say about the future of this city, just the same as I will with every other candidate before I make up my mind on who to vote for.
 
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