Casting call for a stop Ford movement: which also-ran sucks slightly less?

The latest Nanos poll of the Toronto Mayoral race showing a 24-point lead for right-wing candidate Rob Ford has certainly made waves far outside of the elite centre of the universe.

Rob Ford: 34.4 per cent

George Smitherman: 16.0 per cent

Joe Pantalone 12.6 per cent

Rocco Rossi: 7.2 per cent

Sarah Thomson: 4.6 per cent

Undecided: 25.0 per cent

(Phone survey of 1,021 likely voters Sept. 14-16. MOE +/- 3.1 per cent)

The break-out PDF from Nanos is very interesting reading. While Ford has an impressive 50 per cent of the vote in his homebase of Etobicoke, he's no suburban phenomenon. In fact, he leads the field in every region in the city, including a five-point lead on Smitherman in the Toronto core. He leads with both men and women. In every age category. With home owners and renters. It's an impressive and very through domination by Ford.

Rob Silver has a column that offers some very credible explanations for the Ford phenomenon, which I largely agree with. I'd add to the list Miller-backlash, and one more: the utter failure of George Smitherman, Joe Pantalone, Rocco Rossi and Sarah Thomson to wage professional, credible, organized campaigns that speak to the concerns and needs of the electorate.

This is backed-up by what, for me, was the most interesting part of the Nanos poll: the break-down by party support.

Ford has 52.2 per cent of Conservative voters, that's not surprising. Interestingly, despite Rossi and Smitherman's awkward lurches to the right, Joe Pantalone (the Jack Layton-endorsed Miller deputy) is second in Conservative support at 12.5 per cent, followed by Smitherman at 7.1 and Rossi at 6.7 per cent. So yeah, that tactic paid-off well. NDP voters are split between Ford and Pantalone (but this sample is very small).

The Liberal supporter numbers are interesting. Smitherman has a bare lead over Ford amongst Liberal supporters, 27.6 per cent to 26.2 per cent. That's embarrassing for a high-profile former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister. Also embarrassing is Rossi, briefly federal Liberal executive director, at just 7.3 per cent. And a whopping 24.3 per cent of Liberals are still undecided.

That undecided tally mirrors the over undecided total of 25.0 per cent. With a 24 point lead, this is Ford's election to lose. For him to not be elected mayor would require a campaign implosion, and probably a shrinking of the field. And most of those undecideds would have to break one-way, coalescing behind a stop-Ford movement that shows no signs of forming. One has to ask which of the similarly unimpressive candidates it could form behind? How could one candidate credibly say to another "you should drop out because I suck slightly less than you?"

I think many of those undecideds are like me: certainly not going to vote for Ford, but disappointed by all of the other candidates and still hoping, increasingly in vain, that one of the other candidates will do something to impress me. And no, tunnels, money-back guarantees and boccie-balls aren't going to do it.

In the end, barring a game-changer, people like me will either stay home on election day, or hold our noses and vote for the marginally less incompetent alternative. And that's how a guy who drove while intoxicated, lied about a drunken fight at a Leafs game, and has made off-colour remarks about Asians, homosexuals and city cyclists becomes Mayor of Toronto.

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Finding it hard to get excited about Toronto’s mayoralty race

I’ve lived in Toronto for five years now after moving out from British Columbia for a journalism job, and I’m finally starting to feel at home. I still hate the Maple Leafs, but I no longer look away from the CN Tower in an effort to fool myself into thinking I’m not really in Hogtown. I even read the Toronto Star every now and again.

Still, I’m finding it hard to work-up the energy or interest to get excited about our race for mayor or to get engaged by any of the candidates. It’s not that I don’t care about any local issues – transit is my big one – but all the candidates thus far have struck me as either crazy, timid or panderers. It’s hard to be excited about any of them in the mayor’s office, and at this point I still have no idea who I’ll mark an X for in October.

I can safely cross Rob Ford off the list, for reasons so manifold and obvious I shan’t bother to list them. As much as some of his populist pap may strike a chord that is resonating in the polls though, I think his numbers have as much to do with the unimpressive performance of his opponents.

The two obvious choices for me to support based on my political leanings would be George Smitherman and Rocco Rossi. Sadly, I haven’t been much impressed with either of them.

I met Rocco a few times when he was briefly executive director of the federal Liberal Party. He seemed like an accomplished fellow, bursting with energy and ideas. I was pleased when he entered the race, even if he was leaving unfinished business back in Ottawa. But then he started making announcements.

I’ll give Rocco credit for one thing. While Smitherman has been too timid to say muchof substance as the (in his mind) frontrunner, as the scrappy challenger Rossi has been putting plenty of stuff out there. The problem is, I don’t really like any of it. He seemed to hew right so sharply when he launched I found myself wondering if it was really the Liberal Party he was formerly executive directing.

He supports empty populist pap that echoes the Reform Party of old and sounds nice but will do nothing to confront the issues facing Toronto, like cutting the Mayor’s pay or implementing recall legislation. Selling-off Toronto Hydro, besides getting rid of a valuable asset, just temporarily papers-over deeper budget issues. I can get behind putting garbage services to tender. But he loses me on the issue that matters to me most: transit.

First he wanted to freeze Transit City, a plan already funded and in the works that would see LRT lines soon crisscross the city, in favour of studying other options. We need more transit now, this plan is ready to go, and preferring an imperfect plan to more delay I opposed this. Now he wants to take the money from selling Toronto Hydro and put it toward expanding the subway. Subway is better than LRT, but a few problems. First, I don’t support selling off assets to do it. Two, subway is a lot more expensive than LRT, which means less of it, which means many areas will wait much longer for service improvements. Third, he assumes the other levels of government that have committed funding to Transit City will allow it to be ported over to this new plan. That’s a large assumption.

Still, while I don’t agree with most of them, Rossi is at least out there talking policy. Which is more than I can say for Smitherman. As someone who hasn’t followed the race super-close, the impression I have of George is that he seems very reluctant to take firm positions, sometimes gets angry, and went for a long walk down Eglington. So I went to a Web site and, while he offers a little more substance there, traffic wardens and service review don’t exactly set hearts a’flutter. And on transit, he seems to want to do LRT and subway but I don’t see how he’ll pay for it.

Then, there are a handful of other candidates. Apparently someone named Joe Pantalone is running; I know this only because Jack Layton just endorsed him (Jack appears no less than thrice on the front page of his Web site). There’s also a Sarah Thompson who may or may not be slightly conservative and has no political experience. And there was some guy that wanted to build a casino or something but I think he dropped out.

There are our choices for mayor in Canada’s largest city. Any race where people were excited about the prospect of John Tory's potential entry has problems. Maybe I should start averting my gaze from the CN Tower once more. Will any of the candidates step up and impress?

If voters like me are so uninspired we don't bother to vote, that's how Rob Ford wins. But just being the "not crazy alternative" won't cut it either.

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Liberals continue big fundraising momentum

The headline on the CP story tonight really says it all. The Liberals have big-time momentum on the fundraising front. While a lot of work remains to be done, the progress made in a very short time is very impressive:

Liberals triple donations in first half of 2009

June, 29, 2009 - 06:52 pm Bryden, Joan - (THE CANADIAN PRESS)

OTTAWA - The federal Liberal party is no longer a financial basket case.

Rocco Rossi, the party's national director, reports that the party has raised roughly $5 million in the first six months of 2009 - triple its cash intake for the same period last year.

Indeed, the party's haul in the first half of the year is almost as much as the $5.9 million it raised in total over 12 months last year.

(snip)

Rossi said the Liberals will pull in more than $3 million in the second quarter, which ends Tuesday. The Conservatives' fundraising results for the same period won't be released for another few weeks but Rossi said he expects the gap between the two parties will be reduced to about $1 million.

Impressive work by Rossi, Alf Apps and Michael Ignatieff, and really all the Liberals across Canada that have stepped up to help support the party with whatever they could do to help. All the small donations really add up, and it seems we may finally be starting to get the hang of this new fundraising environment.

While we're still behind the Conservatives, we've closed a lot of the gap. There's still progress to be made, but its no longer accurate for the media to dismiss the Liberals as financially troubled. With the party having been debt free for months, these donations are going to fill the party war chest. We'd have been ready to take the Conservatives on this month, of that there's no doubt. And when the time does come, we'll be more than ready.

And there's still time to keep the momentum going. Tuesday is the last day of the quarter, which means there's one more day left to make a donation to help boost the second quarter/first half fundraising numbers. Rossi sent the following e-mail to Liberals this morning:

A critical fundraising deadline is less than 48 hours away, and a contribution from you right now will make an impact that will be felt for months to come.

Donations received by midnight on Tuesday, June 30th will be included in our second quarter fundraising report to Elections Canada. That report will be made public in a few weeks and the results will have an enormous effect on how Canadians view our organization.

A strong showing at this decisive moment will demonstrate to those taking a ‘wait and see’ approach that the Liberal Party is ready to govern and that Michael Ignatieff is ready to lead. It will provide impetus for those on the sidelines to get involved with donations of their own.

It’s as simple as this: your donation today will inspire others to donate in the coming weeks and months – ensuring that we have the funding to fight the Harper Conservatives on an equal footing. Please don’t hesitate. Let your generous support set the example for others to follow.

Thank you,

Rocco Rossi
National Director, Liberal Party of Canada

If you can, try to make a donation and help keep the big 'mo going. As we've seen, every bit really does count.

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Video: Rocco Rossi on One Member, One Vote

I gabbed LPC executive director Rocco Rossi in the hallway this morning to talk about why it's vital that this convention pass One Member, One Vote:

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(Video) The Man tries to keep Liberal bloggers down, and talking party reform with Rocco

With apologies to the S-Club, there ain't no party like a Liblogs party. A Liblogs party does quit though, but only when hotel security shuts down at 11:30pm last night. Surely a record. But we Liberal bloggers are used to being put down by The Man, whether its hotel management or the Conservative government.

While it lasted though it was a great party, very well attended and well lubricated thanks to Cherniak's decision, over my objections, to favour quantity over quality during our trip to the liqour store. They were out of Lucky, but we did clean them out of Old Milwaukee. The room was packed and the air conditioning insufficient to the task at hand. Good Party.

Thursday is the Council of Presidents with the convention proper getting underway Friday, but we still had a lot of delegates and local Liberals on hand, as well as fellow bloggers Steve of Far and Wide, Karen of Liberal Arts and Minds, Jim Calder of Progressive Right. Jim Curran of What Do I Know Grit also came out to “drink Cherniak's beer.”



I said hello briefly to incoming president Alf Apps, and had a chance to have a conversation with national director Rocco Rossi, who is very tall in person. Seriously my neck was straining. Rocco was buoyant about the quarterly fundraising numbers the party released Wednesday. The party doubled the amount it raised in Q1 09 vs Q1 08, raising $1,831, 843 compared to $846,000 a year ago. I'm also told that doesn't include another $1 million we did in April, so Q2 is off to a good start to. It's just a start though, we'll still trail the Conservatives. But it's an impressive turnaround.

I also spoke with Rocco about a 308 riding strategy, and asked where he sees the PTAs in that. He indicated he wants to upload administrative tasks and, rather than maintain PTA offices, devote those resources to hiring field workers to work with the ridings. He worked it out to one fieldworker per 6-8 ridings. I like the idea of fieldworkers to work more directly with ridings, but I feel strongly any successful 308-riding strategy can't be run from Ottawa – it needs the direction and guidance of local PTAs.

I pitched him my idea of giving riding associations a percentage of the Elections Canada per vote subsidy, as a way of both giving more resources to ridings to organize as well as incent no-luck ridings to work harder and grow their vote. Every vote gained means another $1.80 in the coffers, so its a virtuous cycle.

Rocco raised a point I hadn't considered: just give them the money and ridings could become insular and stagnant. I'm not totally sure I agree, but he did raise an interesting alternative: why not incent ridings on the percentage bump, compensate them on the increase between their last two elections. Similar idea, it's something I'll consider.
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Also, a shout-out to James Morton, a fellow blogger and candidate for deputy chair of the council of presidents. His party was also shut down, about 30 minutes after the Liblogs bash.

Vancouver just can't handle us Liberals, it would seem!

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Rossi supports one member, one vote

I can't find an online version, but in an article by John Geddes in the dead-tree edition of Maclean's, incoming Liberal national director Rocco Rossi indicates support for a one-member, one vote method of leadership selection:

"The most important part," he told Maclean's, "is to give meaning to party membership." For instance, he'd like to see the party eventually drop its old delegated convention system for picking leaders in favour of one member, one vote -- the method adopted in recent years by the Tories and NDP. That Rocco is willing to speak-out on such a contentious issue when there's no formal move afoot to change the party's leadership selection rules, and before more Liberals have even learned his name, is revealing.

An encouraging signal for those Liberals, such as myself, that favour OMOV and and end to a delageted convention system that weakens the grassroots voice.

I'll sound one note of caution though, as I always do when discussing OMOV. Pure OMOV would be a negative as Toronto ridings with large memberships would swamp rural ridings with small memberships. Weighted OMOV, where a point system is employed to ensure each riding is weighted equally, is the way to go.

Under such a system, each riding would be given, let's say, 100 leadership votes. Those votes would be broken down based on the vote of their members. So if 75 per cent of riding members vote for candidate A and 25 per cent for Candidate B, that riding would cast 75 votes for A and 25 for B. In that way, Scarborough-Centre and Skeena-Bulkley Valley would have an equal say.

With pure OMOV, the danger is rural ridings become powerless given their small membership numbers, and leadership candidates spend all their time campaigning and speaking to the issues of the large urban ridings in Toronto and Montreal.

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An interview with the new LPC national director, Rocco Rossi

As part of the Liberal leadership transition, Rocco Rossi was recently announced as the incoming national director of the Liberal Party. Perhaps the biggest thing that stands out on his CV is his experience as a fundraiser, leading Ontario's Heart and Stroke Foundation, with fundraising sure to be a major preoccupation for Rossi and the party going forward.

I asked Rossi to share some of his background and experience and his plans to reinvigorate the Liberal Party, and he graciously agreed. He's not officially on the job yet -- he's still wrapping things up at the Heart and Stroke Foundation -- so he wasn't able to get too deep into specifics obviously, but here's what he had to say.

BCer: Could you talk a little about your background and experience in Liberal politics?

Rossi: I first became involved in politics in elementary school in Toronto when I helped one of my teachers, Andrew Meles, run as a Liberal provincially against Dennis Timbrell in Don Mills (lambs to the slaughter in those days;-), but certainly gave me the bug.

I later became Youth Chair in the Federal riding of York East where David Collenette was our member. I was involved there for many years in different capacities and remain a friend of David and Penny to this day.

David introduced me to Senator Keith Davey who then became a friend and mentor. He then asked me to help Dennis Mills in 1988 when I was co-manager and policy chair for his campaign in Broadview-Greenwood that unseated an NDP incumbent. I subsequently became riding President.

I have knocked on doors, dropped flyers, pounded in signs for lots of other federal and provincial candidates over the years from Charles Caccia to Maurizio Bevilacqua to Ben Chin and Michael Ignatieff.

In terms of other political experience, I was campaign manager for John Tory in his run for Mayor of Toronto in 2003 and helped lead a tremendous team of Liberals (Warren Kinsella, Bob Richardson, Ferd Longo, Larry Archer, Premier David Peterson, Hershell Ezrin to name a few) and Tories that grew his support from 4% to 38% and came close to winning, but finished second in a strong field.

BCer: How do you feel your experience with the Heart and Stroke Foundation will help you in this new role?

Rossi: I left the private sector several years ago so that I could devote the balance of my life to making a real difference through public service.(I wrote a piece in the Globe several years ago that goes into greater depth on my thought process. You can read it at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rocco-rossi/solo-in-spain_b_101034.html

The last four years at the Heart and Stroke Foundation have been hugely rewarding in terms of the impact we have been able to make.

BCer: Why are you deciding to take on this challenge now?

Rossi: The decision to accept the position of National Director of the Liberal Party is driven by the belief that this is a way for me to have an even bigger impact. The country is in an unprecedented economic crisis and the electorate have not been thrilled with what any of the parties, including us, have been presenting over the last few elections. A strong Liberal Party is critical and I would like to help in whatever way I can.

I am honoured that Michael and the party have given me this opportunity and I look forward to working with all interested and committed Liberals to build the strongest party possible, and help provide all Canadians with a political party that will reignite the imagination and passion and plain good sense that our political process has been lacking from their perspective for some time now. No one person can accomplish that. It will take a revitalized party with a growing and passionate membership that truly feels membership matters.

BCer: In terms of more specifics around his thoughts on fundraising and building the party in general, Rossi pointed me to an interview he recently did with CP's Joan Bryden. Here's an excerpt from the resulting article:

The party's dire financial straits don't seem to daunt Rossi, a lifelong Liberal.

"I certainly enjoy big challenges," he cheerfully told The Canadian Press.

Rossi said the key to turning around the party's dismal fundraising effort will be re-engaging and re-energizing its dwindling membership base.

"The only way you build a large fundraising pool of smaller donations is to have people who have a stake in (an organization) whether it's a charity or a political party," he said.

"That means re-energizing and building out a membership base, not just for nomination battles and not just for elections, but year-round and on a continuous basis, making membership mean something."

Among other things, Rossi said Liberal members have to be made to feel that their participation is valued, their contribution celebrated.

Rossi said it's too soon to say precisely how he intends to go about expanding the membership and raising money. But his experience at the Heart and Stroke Foundation suggests the party's financial situation can be turned around relatively quickly.

During Rossi's four years at the helm, the foundation more than doubled its volunteer base to about 40,000. And it raked in record revenues of over $120 million last year, up from $92 million when Rossi started the job.

The foundation's success may partly be due to Rossi's willingness to volunteer his own time - to "walk the talk," as he put it - and his ability to dream up fresh, fun ways to raise money. But it's also a matter of attitude, Rossi said.

"I don't look at it as asking for money. I look at it as giving people an opportunity to participate in something bigger than themselves. I am doing them the favour, they're not doing me the favour and that gives you a much different mindset," he said.

"People want to be part of something bigger than themselves, they want to be part of making a difference."

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