Vote Desmond Cole!
Everyone who attended the screening of the documentary City Idol, which had its world premiere April 26 as part of the Hot Docs film festival, left the theatre convinced that Desmond Cole will one day win a seat at City Hall.
The star of the film, the then-24-year-old Cole, was the winner of City Idol, a grassroots-organized competition that saw almost 80 people vie to become candidates in Toronto’s municipal election last November. The winners (there were four, one each for Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough and downtown) received volunteer support to run a campaign in the ward of their choosing, but the documentary focused solely on Cole’s win of the competitive albeit feel-good contest — which was designed to encourage more people to run for city council — and the frustratingly difficult battle he faced to gain recognition and votes once out on the campaign trail.
Cole couldn’t have picked a more challenging ward to run in. The audience watched as he sat patiently waiting his turn to speak during all-candidates debates as Helen Kennedy (who had the support of the NDP machine, plus experience as Olivia Chow’s right-hand-woman at City Hall) and Adam Vaughan (well-known Citytv reporter and son of former councillor Colin Vaughan) duked it out over who took donations from whom. The contrast between the we-can-change-the-world atmosphere of the City Idol events and the outside reality are painfully obvious while watching him knock on doors that are never answered in Alexandra Park. When election day roles around, Cole (who is just as articulate as Vaughan and, at least in this movie anyway, 10 times as charming) looks noticeably exhausted, frustrated and dejected.
“Something I learned is that campaigning is kind of a secret and I wonder why we don’t question that more often,†Cole tells me after reliving the experience through the film. “I want people to see what that experience is like.â€
So will he run again? “That’s the question everyone wants to ask. I now understand why politicians never want to answer it, because you just don’t know,†says Cole, who’s looking forward to gaining more experience as a youth outreach worker. “I have a lot to learn. I’m not going to come back to the public again until I have more to offer. But let’s put it this way: I want to run again.â€
It isn’t easy building green
Perhaps driven by an article in the Toronto Star that compared him unfavourably to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (Daley, it said, is a doer; David Miller is a talker), Mayor Miller announced that Toronto’s green building standards could become mandatory by the end of the year, making the city a North American leader in green buildings. (Take that, Chicago!)
10 comments
Politics is a cruel, cruel profession but perhaps it’s cruelest to aspiring politicians themselves. It reminds me that politicians are at their most laudable when they’re idealistic gumshoes not yet in power, but reaching for that dangling carrot that’s always just out of grasp.
The stars that shine so brightly in municipal election campaigns always hit the ground with a defiant thump after we, the people, elect them to office. After the victory dance it’s all downhill from there. Boy, was I ever looking forward to Miller in 2003 after years of Lastmania. Four years later I can count his achievements on one hand, and the only reason I voted for him this time around was because he was better than Pitfield; because he was the tallest midget at the circus.
If you liked City Idol, your heart will break watching “Street Fight”, the story of aspiring Newark mayoral candidate Cory Booker – perhaps the most exemplary human being who ever ran for public office – versus the corrupt, fatcat incumbent, Sharpe Jones. Booker faced intimidation, threats and that greatest of American political bogeymen – racism (Sharpe Jones claimed Booker was not “black enough”) and despite it all Booker maintained his integrity throughout the campaign. Unfortunately, being a good guy cost Booker the election. He won it last year, but only after Sharpe Jones stepped down. Now we can all watch a terrific human being get dragged down by a horrible system.
It’s not a Toronto thing. The corruptibility, or the watering down, of idealistic politicians to parodies of their former selves is a universal attribute of power. It might as well be an irrefutable truth.
I loved the flick, but they ignored the multiple issues that ward 20 faced and whether Cole was up for the job. I was a tad disappointed to see Adam Vaughan cast as a bad guy when he was very supportive of Desmond Cole and the City Idol process. It is a shame that Cole got caught up in the most hyped and politically volatile race in the city, not to mention probably the most important ward in the city (great for the doc, bad for the results). The thing is, Vaughan’s campaign was a grassroots campaign, except that he had a history of civic involvement, helpful lineage, and a well-known face. He had no list of names, no team, no volunteers to start off with, and no party affiliation (despite the venom found on the often horrible Rabble.ca). Kennedy had all of that and still crashed and burned. Vaughan worked hard from May to election day, canvassing every day and often talking to one person for 15 minutes at a time while hundreds walked past. Desmond will one day make a great councillor, I have no doubt of that, but he wasn’t ready for the heaviness of Trinity-Spadina. If he had run against Frances Nunziata he could have won, or a bunch of other stiffs. Credit Cole for sticking to the place he knows best and being principled about it every step of the way.
Des needs to get himself talking a t conferences and onto city advisory boards so that people outside his community can see how great he is. At minimum, I hope he gets picked up as a staff member for Vaughan at some point or neighbouring wards.
leonard> has cory booker dissapointed yet, in any tangible way? i don’t know, i’m asking — i saw the film and loved it as well, and was happy when I heard he finally won.
Susan> Occasionally reading rabble.ca during the last election may have turned me off of the NDP forever. they have to make a real, public effort to distance themselves from that nasty awful bullshit posted by “hard core supporters” or else they’ll remain (or go further) into obscurity. It’s like they read the karl rove handbook to politics, and (i hope) you can’t get away with that in Canada. The conservatives barely did, with a minority gov’t.
Susan, you put a lot of questionable statements on the table that I’ll let slide but there’s one part that can’t go uncontested. Adam Vaughan was never genuinely supportive of Desmond. Since the election Vaughan has sliced and diced Des behind his back (to me personally) because Des wouldn’t dance like the puppet Vaughan wanted him to be. I have it on good word that he did the samething during the election but I can’t attest to it personally.
Des put himself above the mudslinging at election time and still does so today, which makes what Adam Vaughan is saying seem all that much more unbecoming of a councillor.
As for the documentary, I thought the second half was pretty good but the first half lacked focus, even though their “focus” was the downtown contest. Finding a slightly stronger narritive that connected the first part to the second would have created an even more compelling story.
I haven’t seen the pic. But I watched the real thing – many City Idol sessions; many all candidates.
Cole is bright to be sure; but he needs to get quite a bit under his belt before doing this again. Having read newspaper reports this week about the goings on at City Hall – and the way Vaughan seems to have been stick handling it all (no hockey intended) – Trinity Spadina made the right decision. Vaughan seems to be the “starch” needed to stiffen up the resolve of the slackers and the “lens” that for those who have no vision.
Again – look forward to seeing it. Does anyone know if they still need money to complete the film? and how much?
Shawn,
I don’t think Cory Booker has disappointed per se, but in a NY Times series last fall he conceded that the city was in a mess. Crime was up since he took office, and there was – I think – a job action by the police that was causing some tension. Booker was optimistic, but less convincingly than he had been during the campaign. Of course the media jumped on the crime issue like white on rice. The trouble with politicians – especially municipal politicians – is that the more they care, the more they’re under scrutiny. Meanwhile someone like Rob Ford basically just has to show up to council and resist acting like a buffoon.
My disappointment with City Idol was that the candidate entered an open ward with two respected candidates rather than targeting one of the many incumbents of both left and right who have overstayed their welcome.
I think Adam was indeed genuinely supportive of Desmond’s campaign. The proof for me, was that on election night, Adam spent the last few hours of the evening not at his own Victory Party but at Desmond’s party. There was no reason to do that, other than a true commitment to the City Idol project. Adam was one of the biggest supporters of City Idol, from the day we launched (on his show) to the final day when he left his own party to join ours.
That’s quite true. And Adam brought members of his family to Desmond’s party upstairs at Paupers (the bar…for 3 years i thought it was called poppers, because I never looked at the sign).
It’s a credit to everyone involved in City Idol (the project and the documentary) that we are having this discussion so many months after the election. The City Idol project truly supported and encouraged both new candidates and new voters in Toronto’s municipal scene, a remarkable step in the right direction. Many people told me my candidacy had prompted them to vote for the first time. My criticism of the documentary is its failure to explore the motivations of these sorts of people.
It is so important to discuss why people should or should not support new candidates whose odds of winning are low. This relates to our ongoing tendency to view elections as exercizes in strategic voting.
The perspectives of new, undecided, or reluctant voters are critical pieces of the City Idol experience. The issue of whether or not I had the support of one of my political opponents is, in my view, much less relevant. I see the film as an opportunity to continue a necessary discussion about the need for more inclusivity in Toronto’s municipal affairs.