Is the glass half empty or half full?
The election story line that is rapidly crystallizing into received wisdom is that our new garbageman-in-chief Rob Ford won a landslide protest vote fueled by taxpayer anger over senseless waste at City Hall. The winds of change are upon us. There’s a new sheriff in town. The revolution will not be televised. Pick your cliché.
I see a different result.
With 100% of polls reporting, mayor-elect Ford garnered 383,501 votes. But 385,314 Torontonians chose to support either George Smitherman or Joe Pantalone. Read those numbers closely. That’s 47.1% for the Etobicoke penny-pincher, and 47.3% against said Etobicoke penny pincher. He didn’t win hand’s down.
Is this just sore-loser spin? Certainly, there’s no question Smitherman lost by a longshot in the two-person race he desperately wanted this election to be.
But Torontonians, collectively, have expressed a different and more nuanced decision — one that suggests the apparent tidal wave of populist outrage may be a good deal less frothy than the result depicted in the mainstream media. After all, Mr. Ford’s waste management message was nothing if not clear, and those who voted for either Pantalone or Smitherman were saying they don’t buy it.
Apart from the popular vote, the council results surely tell the tale. When Miller came into office, he brought a group of progressive/reformist councillors along for the ride. By my count, the Ford revolt translated into just two new councillors, both in north-west Etobicoke — one of whom is his brother Doug.
Both the right and the left lost some stalwarts, but the 15 newcomers on council could hardly be described as a turnkey operation for a hard-right mayor. Does he persuade a group with so many newbies — many of them centrists — to vote themselves out of jobs? No chance.
Ford will succeed in quickly killing the vehicle registration tax. That’s day one. But the open question on the first chapters of Ford’s mayoralty is whether he decides to run as if he won a landslide. He’ll discover soon enough that he didn’t.
photo from Toronto Archives: Fonds 200, Series 372, Subseries 100, Item 563
21 comments
Calm down, John. You do sound like a sore-loser here. While your number is correct, the “47.3% voted against him” argument really is pointless. The same could be argued for most elected politicians, right? How many had voted against Miller in the two elections that he won?
As I said in the comments elsewhere, this is not the end of the world. Most of his crazy ideas won’t fly anyway, mainly for the reason you pointed out correctly here; the ones he has a shot at, may not be bad things to try. I’d sit back and see how he does. The part that interests me the most is how he will confront the public sector union, to which I think he owes much for his mayoralty.
You should add all the fringe candidates and the 7000 votes cast for Rossi and Thompson, you’ll see that Rob Ford lost the election!
Yes. This is infact sore loser spin.
For the record, in 2003, David Miller and Barbara Hall, the centre-left candidates, garnered 53%, while John Tory and John Nunziata got 43%. In 2006, Miller took more than 60% of the popular vote.
Yu, I think the point is that Ford is entitled to no particular deference owing to some overwhelming “mandate”. A mandate is what you craft of it. The new council is an amalgam of new and old, left and right. It is up to Rob Ford (who has, it is well noted, failed miserably in the past to forge any kind of alliances, even with his ideological brethren) to work with the 44 member council to get things done. Each councillor has their own particular, and more localized, mandate and it behooves Rob Ford to recognize this and work cooperatively with council to bring about the kind of change he promised. By way of example, happily in my ward, the relatively progressive Sarah Doucette beat the dead wood Bill Saundercook, with almost exactly the same kind of popular vote (47%) as Ford won. She ought not to be cowed by Ford’s supposed mandate, as I can assure you that few of those 47% here were Ford supporters.
@Yu: in 2006, Miller won approx 70% of the vote. That means only 30% voted “against” him. Compared to this year’s results, that’s a significant difference. But I agree that we shouldn’t dwell on this – our electoral system is what it is. The bottom line is that we have a conservative mayor, along with a mostly progressive council. Those progressive councillors (old and new) will keep Ford in check, just as Ford and the conservative councillors (who are still a minority) should be able to keep the left-wing majority in check. This could turn out to be a very good thing – on both sides.
Sorry, I see my numbers regarding 2006 are slightly off. But my point still stands. Miller won a clear majority. Thanks for clarifying, John.
The only reason Miller got 60% in 2006 was because Pitfield (who didn’t even get in as councillor this time) was his only real high profile opponent. LeDrew was a joke from the start. Am not a Ford supporter but he won by a fairly substantial margin, especially for someone who was not an incumbent. This writer’s “analysis” is little more than sour grapes.
For the record:
I see you lump Smitherman (progressive when he wants to be) with Pantalone and Miller with Hall when its convenient. Or by your own undefined political leanings.
Also no factor for voter turnout which was lower in both those elections.
Why not put Ford with Smitherman for this election? Smitherman ran centre right for most of the campaign. Was this actually a landslide for right/ centre-right?
Of course it wasn’t. It was a victory for Rob Ford with 47% out of 51% of voters. Full stop.
Come on. All your number crunching is total BS.
John,
I love the site and I say this with all due respect: If you honestly believe that ALL 88,811 people that voted for Pantalone would vote for Smitherman….OR….all 266,460 people that voted Smitherman would automatically go to Pantalone, well you are delusional.
Smitherman didn’t campaign from the Left. Joey Pants was dead right when he said he was the only Progressive option. Smitherman took up the only spot he knows how to take….the mushy middle where a Liberal will be whatever you want him to be. Only Pantalone was the “true” choice for the left and both Miller and Giambronne knew it.
The sooner you accept that 52% of eligible voters turned out and almost 1 out of 2 of them voted Ford…..the better. The sooner the left starts holding him accountable to his promises – like extending the Sheppard Subway and Bloor/Danforth Subway to Scarborough Town Centre – the better.
I have to apologize to John Lorinc. Back when Rocco Rossi came on the scene, I upbraided him for lavishing so much hype on a guy who – as best could be determined – was a party bagman with zero record of substance on public policy issues that concern Toronto…and that he reminded me of the Stephen Ledrew clownshow. John assured me that the Rocco Rossi phenomenon was not at all like Stephen Ledrew.
And we see now that John was right – Stephen Ledrew got 3 times as much support as Rocco Rossi. Sorry John!
Not having a compliant council to institute wacked ideas is not salve enough for those of us in shock. Miller brought `clean and beautiful’, transit planning, and visions of a renewed waterfront; argue as you wish about effectiveness, but the point is that the mayor provides ideas and vision, the absence of which will certainly slow T.O. It’ll be the status quo, ironically, for the next four years.
@McKingford — Guilty as charged. I still think Rocco has more going on upstairs than LeDrew, but the tunnel was, if you’ll pardon the political allusion, a bridge too far…
So by Joes definition progressive means bankrupting the city?
How about progressively destroying our infrastructure through neglect.
Or progressively making traffic worse by putting bike lanes in without any thought, and planning to harden the arteries of the city by eliminating 2 lanes of traffic in the name of LRT?
Progressive has been used for the last 5 years or so, what does it even mean?
I have to assume that the title and photo are at least in part a reference (arguably fitting) to this.
Ford won and the spin is he’s got the mandate for change. Some things he’ll be able to do (no more bunny suit rentals or retirement parties) but man council meetings are going to be funny and brutal to watch. Democracy in action. Hopefully who’s ever speaker will be able to keep it together.
I have never had any brief for David Miller: I still believe he beat out two better candidates in Barbara Hall and John Tory, and I believe the heart of the “progressive” movement, he inherited, namely the old David Crombie and Jane Jacobs coalition, has twitched its last twitch. For worse and for better, that forty year period in this city’s history has come to an end. We will quite certainly reconstitute a progressive movement in Toronto over the next four years, but I believe to my core that we must and will build a less downtown and less white movement.
On a personal level, I find Rob Ford affable, engaging, and pleasant. He has a coherent concept of government, one I do not totally agree with but that I understand, a concept of servant government. And if he actually dumps the dehumanizing rhetoric that classes citizens as economic units, or “taxpayers”, then his core philosophy, that government has responsibilities and owes respect to the governed, and not the other way around, may actually drive some real improvements in this city. Ford and his allies may do the city and the Toronto Left a real service if they can put an end to the practice of treating “discretionary” budgets as personal funds. They will do even more good if they can stifle the prattle we’ve seen in this campaign, trying to justify any entitlement to which insiders help themselves as long as the money involved does not exceed some fraction of the overall city budget.
We have tarred him with some of his opponents’ proposals, particularly in regard to transportation. Unlike Rocco Rossi, he does not propose a “big dig” to complete the Spadina Expressway. Unlike Mammoliti, he has not spoken in favour of licensing cyclists. His campaign has now disclaimed any intention of scrapping the existing streetcar network.
Rob Ford has a very clear mandate to eliminate the culture of entitlements in city government. That mandate has aspects the urban Left can get behind, and I believe we should get behind it. For the rest, including the loonier Ford supporters, the ones who want to fire the TTC workers and replace them with Walmart greeters working at Walmart wages, well, let’s see what fights we’ll have to fight before we go into battle. We have four years ahead of us, no sense getting spooked by shadows in the first week.
I think it’s fair to say that many people voted for Ford because they like the high level general message about waste reduction. Remember that other than a few specifics, Ford really hasn’t articulated how he will actually accomplish his goals. That he has backed down on streetcars and the land transfer tax (at least temporarily) suggests that his team recognizes that it’s not as easy to implement as implied during the campaign.
I may be proven wrong, but Ford’s promise to cut over $1billion from the budget and not have an impact on services seems ludicrous. In 2007, the City tried to cut $35 million – and this was viewed by many staff, members of council and the public as drastic.
As a liberal, it confuses me to understand why the right-wingers are demanding we respect Ford when they spent the last 8 years demonizing Miller.
E. Blair – our infrastructure has been slowly decaying due to neglect for at least 30 years, through the inactions of all levels of government, right, centre, or left. When the “right” is in charge, they are loathe to do anything about it because it costs loads of money, and doesn’t fit with their rhetoric of cost-cutting. The “centre” and “left” … well, they have no excuse. Infrastructure is an investment in the future, but is always seen as a huge cost for the present.
I agree, however, that “progressive” is an ill-defined term. Can’t one be “progressive” while simultaneously caring about income vs. expense?
@John Lorinc – “For the record, in 2003, David Miller and Barbara Hall, the centre-left candidates, garnered 53%”
Now Magazine, August 7-14, 2003; byline – Don Wanagas
“Hall’s support for a bridge to the Island Airport, workfare and a moratorium on homeless shelter beds has turned off more than a few progressives.”
“Councillor Olivia Chow – who last week endorsed Miller for mayor on the strength of his stand against construction of a bridge to an expanded Island Airport”
“Miller could be in the best position to exploit Hall’s progressive lapses”
A lot of people regard the 2003 election as a referendum of the bridge – except on that basis Miller got 43%, Hall and Tory 47%…
To Spragge… a fantastic post!