A Better Endorsement Than Mine ....

I was having a conversation with Voltaire's Ghost in the comments to this post last night and one the points he made were about Sarah Thomson's qualifications to be mayor. Specifically Voltaire wondered about whether "her ideas add up, if she could handle the job, if she has the smarts for it, and the impression I get is that this is pretty much a vanity project for her."

That got me to wondering what makes Rob Ford so goddamned special, anyhow. What precisely has he done with his life that qualifies him to be mayor? We know that he likes football and eating, although not necessarily in that order, and that everything he has - including a multi-million dollar business and his political career - was handed to him by his daddy.

Other than demonstrating that he's a fabulously wealthy guy who can afford his own stationary, can anyone name three things that he's done on City Council? Seriously, three will do. He's been there for a decade, and I can't think of a single idea of his that was actually enacted, or even came close to being so. I'll grant you that he's developed quite a personality cult in the local blogosphere and the Toronto Sun, but that's not exactly a legislative achievement.

Anyhow, Conrad Black spoke out and endorsed Sarah Thomson this morning in the paper that he used to own, the National Post. He does so in critiquing the same Bob Hepburn Star column that I did on Thursday.

I don’t wish to sound like a school-teaching stickler in denigrating Rob Ford’s intellect, but anyone who says, as Mr. Ford did, that “They have other fish to fry beside feathering their own nest” is not fit for high public office. Smitherman is just a drop-out from the McGuinty economic miracle that has made Ontario a have-not province. Rossi and Pantalone are ineffectual panderers to right and left, respectively (though at some candidates’ meetings, they may have got their directions mixed). Sarah Thomson is the only one who has an original program, and is untainted by the gravy train Rob Ford abhors.

Sarah Thomson, Hepburn sermonizes excitedly, is running as a woman: “Can anyone figure out why she thinks she has a chance of winning? She gets media play because, honestly, she’s the only woman in the race, not because she’s qualified.”

I would have thought this truth in political packaging refreshing. She is a woman, a mother, and not a priggish or Stepford version of her sex. She’s also a successful businesswoman and a peppy self-made person who would bring some panache and originality to the job. After eight years of government by ultra-green David Miller, the friend of the garbagemen and of those who have indecent fantasies about speed bumps, it’s time for a representative person who yet has some style and can deliver a program.

There is no more that is wrong with being a woman than there is anything wrong with the Hepburn white hope, Smitherman, overtly pitching to gays, Ford to the heavy-set Archie Bunkers, and Rossi and Pantalone to the right and left of the Italian community. The real question is where are the other women; and the answer is that they haven’t come forward because uptight gender-bothered stuffed shirts in the municipal media have ignored Thomson.

Hepburn grumbles that her only previous election was an unsuccessful try for alderman in Hamilton, Ont. This is a good thing. The best mayor we could have is a can-do, straight-talking woman who is not mired in the rancid bouillabaisse of municipal affairs, looks like a successful person and is one; has some flair and the energy of comparative youth; doesn’t look and sound and think like the “before” half of a 3 a.m. television commercial for weigh-loss or hair-growth nostrums and will shake things up and confer some fun on municipal affairs.

The fetid little in-group of city hall reporters has stonewalled the less familiar candidates. They aren’t the Electoral College; and they should open the race up instead of trying to shut it down. If, in a week or two, none of the second tier of candidates has moved too far, Rossi and Pantalone should pull out in favour of Thomson. Smitherman is a melting iceberg and Ford is a deflating gas balloon.

My thinking exactly. Bravo, Conrad!


On another note, everyone who's interested should read this expose on Rob Ford's math. In, of all places, the Sun.