{"id":10368,"date":"2010-04-06T14:00:20","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T18:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=10368"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:12:04","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:12:04","slug":"lorinc-help-wanted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/04\/06\/lorinc-help-wanted\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: Help wanted"},"content":{"rendered":"

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At last week’s Spacing launch, one left-leaning councilor laid out the bare bones of Joe Pantalone’s campaign strategy: the veteran, this person predicted, will emerge as a kind of Jean Chretien figure — le petit gars de Trinity-Spadina, if you will — who offers voters a calm harbour of positivism while fiscal pitbulls Rocco Rossi, George Smitherman and Rob Ford rip one another to shreds.<\/p>\n

After months of relentlessly divisive rhetoric, voters will be ready to embrace Pantalone’s steady-as-she goes candidacy. If he takes just 35% of the votes, Pantalone could prevail in a field where the right is deeply split, or so the logic goes.<\/p>\n

But does Pantalone have anything going for him besides the math? And is the math, in fact, correct, or will the various drum-thumpers on the right succeed in boosting voter turnout among the ranks of Toronto’s aggrieved?<\/p>\n

I am not persuaded by the Chretien model. The analogy, for one thing, is imprecise: Yes, the wily parliamentarian understood how to capitalize on being underestimated. But the fact is that he won in 1993 because voters were hungry to punish the Brian Mulroney\/Kim Campbell Tories for all sorts of reasons.<\/p>\n

Torontonians also seem to be in a fairly punitive frame of mind this year, but Pantalone doesn’t automatically emerge on the sunny side of that dynamic just because there’s so much competition on the right.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Then there’s the related problem of what, precisely, he stands for. When I asked him the other night, Pantalone talked about diversity, the environment, protecting the livability of the city, and so on.<\/p>\n

Mayor David Miller this week will also launch an all-out PR offensive against Dalton McGuinty over the Transit City funding, to which Pantalone will no doubt add his voice (although he may want to think twice about joining a scorched earth campaign against someone with whom he may eventually need to do business).<\/p>\n

That’s all fine, but as was apparent at last week’s debate in Scarborough, Pantalone has yet to find a crisply defined issue on which he can hang his hat. Those who attended heard five candidates dump back-loaders full of criticism on this council’s record, plus one who mildly countered those accusations but didn’t have anything concrete to offer by way of alternative to either the right-wingers or the current administration.<\/p>\n

The conventional wisdom about campaign tactics is that it’s a long war and you don’t want to peak early. Keep the powder dry, it’s just April and all that. Maybe, but Pantalone has to give left-of-centre voters something to get worked up about.<\/p>\n

A couple of suggestions:
\n\u2022 Promise transit users a reloadable smart card by the end of the next term (TTC general manager Gary Webster told Spacing that Torontonians shouldn’t expect anything of the sort for at least seven more years, which seems outrageous).
\n\u2022 Deliver municipal voting reform for the 2014 election (see BetterBallots.to<\/a>).
\n\u2022 Transform Yonge south of Bloor into a pedestrian mall\/bike corridor, based on the revitalization of Broadway in New York.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

John Laschinger, Pantalone’s campaign manager and former manager of Miller’s and Adam Giambrone’s campaigns, was listening carefully at last week’s debate and he’s certainly mulling over the question of how to position the man who gets to be the standard bearer for Miller’s legacy.<\/p>\n

Herewith, an opportunity to ante up your own ideas. As this race gains momentum, what should a compelling progressive mayoral platform consist of?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At last week’s Spacing launch, one left-leaning councilor laid out the bare bones of Joe Pantalone’s campaign strategy: the veteran, this person predicted, will emerge as a kind of Jean Chretien figure — le petit gars de Trinity-Spadina, if you will — who offers voters a calm harbour of positivism while fiscal pitbulls Rocco Rossi,Continue reading “LORINC: Help wanted”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[94,629,3879,3216,425,3280,2347,6245,12521,1103,14676,1960,426,657,469,14716,227,10726,89,3860,19,889],"class_list":["post-10368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-2010-election","tag-adam-giambrone","tag-campaign-manager","tag-dalton-mcguinty","tag-david-miller","tag-gary-webster","tag-general-manager","tag-george-smitherman","tag-jean-chretien","tag-joe-pantalone","tag-john-laschinger","tag-manager","tag-mayor","tag-miller","tag-new-york","tag-pantalones-campaign-manager","tag-rob-ford","tag-rocco-rossi","tag-scarborough","tag-smart-card","tag-toronto","tag-ttc"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLORINC: Help wanted - 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