I Hope They Listen to Him

He said the obsession over partisanship and splitting votes on the right and left is distracting from real issues.

"Here's the thing: nobody cares about those old labels of left or right and liberal and conservative.  Is removing the snow a right-wing or left-wing idea?  Is fixing the potholes more New Democrat or Conservative?  It's ridiculous," he said.

Liberals = Whigs = horse thieves (Scots Gaelic)

Conservatives = Tories = Outlaws (Irish Gaelic)

It's a 17th Century thing - came about as a result of the Restoration and arguments over whether a Catholic King was acceptable.

There should be no surprise that the Political Centre is such a crowded place, or that ardent Liberals at one level can be NDP candidate supporters at another, or Conservative or whatever.  Much as was the case in the late 1600s, partisanship remains a country-club kind of thing largely focused on backing someone who will grant you opportunities or standing against someone you find distasteful.

Policy comes somewhere down the road - that's the convention.

Mr. Nenshi, who was re-elected as Calgary mayor last fall with 74 per cent of the vote, explained the techniques he used during his campaign would be worth adopting by Toronto's mayoral hopefuls; telling residents why they love the city, what drives them to be mayor, and how they plan to make the city better.

That isn't how the game is played here, of course.  We go negative and attack.  When someone criticizes the way we play the game, we attack them, too, hoping to either scare them off or discredit them.  

I'm sure there are a host of players in town who would love to tear a strip off of Nenshi for questioning their ways - but there's just one problem.

Scratch that - there are 74 problems.  Or points, as it were.

You can beat your opponents, but that's not the same as winning the trust of your city.  Maybe coming from Nenshi, they'll listen.  I mean, they'd be crazy not to, right?