But that's not quite right. Think back to the early days of her campaign: she positioned herself as "the only one who can beat Rob Ford." It was ALL about him, Tory was a non-entity. But for some reason, here strategists' bone-headed approach was to try to beat Ford by playing Ford's game. So she was all about short slogans and repetition, keeping taxes low, personal anecdotes, etc. etc. Any hint of lefty progressive type stuff was kept safely under wraps. She moulded herself into a fake populist politician, it was a poor fit and it showed, and her base hated it.
Her campaign IMO seemed to suffer from delayed reading of the game, and numerous small mistakes with some relative big ones. I got a recorded message from Doug's campaign last night, to the BBQ they're having. Kinda funny to hear Doug doing his best to sound cheerful and friendly, and him exclaiming 'Rob!" like a main attraction ferris wheel or something. Doug sounded like that Homer Simpson auto dialer episode. Which to be fair, at least sounds better than bullyboy mode Thug.
Someone named Olivia Chow was also on my call display, unfortunately they didn't leave a message. This might be small potatoes, but too many small potatoes and it can start to bog down her campaign. Not leaving a message is head scratching to me, getting your name out there on a one on one level is still huge in this game. It's possible it was a complete co-incidence and it was someone else named Chow that mistakenly dialed my number. However I don't know anyone in my personal circle named Olivia Chow, and I'm willing to bet a whole nickle that it might be from the Chow campaign. Which if it was, really, least they can do is to leave a message or something.
Soknacki dropped out but the damage was already done. I get the sense that many former Chow supporters honestly felt betrayed, and are now reluctant to come back to her and unsure of what to do. Which, in my opinion, is crazy in the face of the alternatives, and a pretty terrible outcome of this campaign.
You're right that Socks had some policies were he actually elected as mayor, chances are council would not pass or would\could not be enforced. His vulcan charm was not a great help in retail politics setting, but he was a "nerd and proud of it". Chow seemed to be fighting internally at times, on whether to let her NDP roots fly proud, or to try to appeal more to centrists. Whether to level some fire at Rob\Doug or to chide them instead, and bringing out the "Maria" stories which to me doesn't quite fit the mood this camping season is in.
Politics is not a nice game, optics can trump actual reality, and it can reward the biggest a-holes and punish those perceived as "weak.", sometimes at a superficial and fickle whim. But the players need to be able to "read the room" so to speak. And right now Chow's campaign seems to have trouble with that IMO.
TL;DR: I may not agree with many of Chow's policies, but at least she projected a clearer image before this campaign. Where did -that- Olivia Chow go?
