{"id":8335,"date":"2009-12-14T13:55:55","date_gmt":"2009-12-14T18:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=8335"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:11:51","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:11:51","slug":"john-lorinc-liberals-at-the-gates-of-city-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/12\/14\/john-lorinc-liberals-at-the-gates-of-city-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"JOHN LORINC: Liberals at the gates of City Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"Miles Storey\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3378\/3328274646_57a2a9fe2b.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"353\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/images\/feature-graphics\/feature-lorinc.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"85\" \/><\/p>\n<p>No matter how large the field grows, the 2010 mayoral race will ultimately devolve to a single ur-narrative: can an outsider do a better job than the insiders who must spend the next year answering for David Miller&#8217;s shortcomings?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s impossible to imagine how Joe Pantalone, Shelley Carroll or Adam Giambrone could persuasively distance themselves from <em>l&#8217;ancien regime<\/em>, and there&#8217;s little reason to think they&#8217;d try such a stunt, given their allegiances to the mayor.<\/p>\n<p>So it will fall to the outsiders &#8211; George Smitherman and now Liberal Party president Rocco Rossi &#8211; to prove they&#8217;re not barbarians at the gates. We&#8217;ll hear endless accounts of Miller&#8217;s failings. But if either hope to prevail next November, they&#8217;ll have to tell Torontonians what they&#8217;re for, not just what they&#8217;re against.<\/p>\n<p>By most accounts, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/news\/national\/toronto\/smitherman-may-have-his-eyes-on-the-prize-but-his-mayoral-visions-lacking\/article1398121\/\">Smitherman&#8217;s speech last week<\/a> did little to answer the question. Rossi got his first shot at scoping out his own vision when he announced his candidacy at City Hall this morning.<\/p>\n<p>The detailed platforms, wedge issues and ballot questions will emerge later, of course. In the interim, we get to watch how these two Liberal veterans try on the mayoral personas they&#8217;ll be broadcasting to voters.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Smitherman, I predict, will emerge as this election&#8217;s Angry Man, a role John Nunziata performed to the hilt in 2003. He&#8217;ll revert to Furious George mode because (a) it&#8217;s worked well for him in the past, and (b) because it will be his best line of defense in the face of relentless questions about his role in the eHealth Ontario scandal. (If he wins, I&#8217;m also guessing Mayor Smitherman would borrow generously from Hazel McCallion&#8217;s handbook for keeping councillors scared and obedient.)<\/p>\n<p>Faced with Smitherman&#8217;s aggressive ticks, Rossi could end up playing the role of the election&#8217;s Optimistic Man, a part Miller played in 2003. He&#8217;s possessed of a sunny disposition and wears an ear-to-ear grin with no dimmer switch. He&#8217;s got a great network of contacts but almost no name recognition, so he enters the race as something of a blank slate. And unlike Smitherman, he&#8217;s got no electoral track record to defend defensively, only a peripatetic career through stints in consulting, fundraising and political organizing.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve often wondered what a right-of-centre version of Miller would look like, and Rossi in some ways fits the bill. There are some interesting parallels. Both came from very modest homes, succeeded on their wits in elite educational institutions, impressed influential mentors, and proved themselves as skilled debaters.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s not yet clear is whether his candidacy is the genuine article or merely a profile-raising dress rehearsal for a run at a federal Toronto riding.<\/p>\n<p>Motive aside, the dynamic between Smitherman and Rossi will prove to be the election&#8217;s most riveting source of dramatic tension. They&#8217;ll simultaneously unload at one another while dumping on Miller. But the deciding factor will be the city&#8217;s mood circa October 2010. Are we feeling broke and anxious, or are we looking ahead to recovery, keening to seize the day?<\/p>\n<p>Do we look in the mirror in the morning and see Mr. Angry or Mr. Optimistic?<\/p>\n<p><em>photo by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mutephotoblog\/3328274646\/\">Miles Storey<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No matter how large the field grows, the 2010 mayoral race will ultimately devolve to a single ur-narrative: can an outsider do a better job than the insiders who must spend the next year answering for David Miller&#8217;s shortcomings? It&#8217;s impossible to imagine how Joe Pantalone, Shelley Carroll or Adam Giambrone could persuasively distance themselves<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/12\/14\/john-lorinc-liberals-at-the-gates-of-city-hall\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;JOHN LORINC: Liberals at the gates of City Hall&#8221;<\/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":[94,629,13884,425,6245,717,1103,1030,13885,1767,426,665,13883,22085,475,10726,1276,19],"class_list":["post-8335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-2010-election","tag-adam-giambrone","tag-angry-man","tag-david-miller","tag-george-smitherman","tag-hazel-mccallion","tag-joe-pantalone","tag-john-lorinc","tag-john-nunziata","tag-liberal-party","tag-mayor","tag-miles-storey","tag-optimistic-man","tag-politics","tag-president","tag-rocco-rossi","tag-shelley-carroll","tag-toronto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>JOHN LORINC: Liberals at the gates of City Hall - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/12\/14\/john-lorinc-liberals-at-the-gates-of-city-hall\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JOHN LORINC: Liberals at the gates of City Hall - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"No matter how large the field grows, the 2010 mayoral race will ultimately devolve to a single ur-narrative: can an outsider do a better job than the insiders who must spend the next year answering for David Miller&#8217;s shortcomings? 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