Ford cruises to victory in Toronto, Waterloo decides General Ripper was right

It seems that those polls suggesting that Smitherman was within striking range of Ford were inaccurate:

Rob Ford, the city councillor who campaigned against waste and business-as-usual at City Hall, is the new mayor of Toronto.

With 90 per cent of polls reporting, Mr. Ford took almost 49 per cent of the vote, compared to 34 per cent for former Ontario deputy premier George Smitherman and 11 per cent for third-place finisher Joe Pantalone, the current deputy mayor.

From the Globe. How much damage he can do depends on who gets elected to council; my guess is that he won't have enough allies to accomplish most of what he'd like to, but I don't know. Those more familiar with the makeup of council are encouraged to comment.

Edited to add: OK, this looks bad.

Meanwhile, in Waterloo Region, all three cities have reelected their mayors, and Waterloo itself seems to have voted strongly against any formal talks with Kitchener about amalgamation in a referendum. In a separate referendum, they narrowly voted to discontinue the fluoridation of the city's drinking water.

Also notable is that Brenda Halloran is the first Waterloo mayor to be reelected in 16 years. It strikes me that Winnipeg also has a pattern that could use breaking, namely the fact that we haven't thrown out an incumbent mayor since 1956. In two days we'll find out if the pattern will hold for another four...

A guide to Toronto's mayoral candidates

Courtesy of the Star. Some highlights:

Taxes: Ford wants to abolish the land transfer tax, while Smitherman and Pantalone want to keep it. The situation with property taxes is interesting. As noted previously, Smitherman is actually even more aggressive than Ford on this issue - he wants to freeze them, while Ford merely wants to index them to inflation.

Transit: Ford, much like Katz in Winnipeg, wants to tear up the existing plans and renegotiate. Pantalone wants to continue, while Smitherman actually wants to add to existing plans.

Other environmental issues: Both Pantalone and Smitherman scored high here (20 and 18 out of 20 respectively). Ford didn't bother to answer the questionnaire.

Contracting out: Pantalone wants to freeze it; both Ford and Smitherman want to do it. Of the two, Smitherman is arguably worse than Ford, since he is open to contracting out bus routes in addition to garbage and recycling.

Debt: Pantalone figures there are higher priorities, and that the debt can be kept constant. Both Ford and Smitherman want to actively reduce it by selling city assets.

Hiring of staff: None of them advocate massive layoffs. Pantalone wishes to continue the present policy, which is to simply evaluate whether it's necessary to fill a given vacancy. Ford and Smitherman are much more aggressive here, wanting to eliminate 1,500 and 1,300 jobs, respectively, by attrition.

Size of council: Pantalone and Smitherman want to leave well enough alone, while Ford wants to cut it in half.

Looking at it in this way, Smitherman does seem to be somewhat preferable to Ford overall, and I certainly think the venom that some have directed towards those who advocate tactical voting is a bit excessive. Nonetheless, I still think Smitherman would remain mayor for a lot longer than Ford would if elected, and that could be a negative in itself. So I'd still urge progressive Torontonians to hold out for Joe.

America rediscovers the bicycle

This is a positive development:

America is known for its enduring love affair with the automobile. But in the last few years cities across the US have reported a surge in bicycle use, as people search for greener, healthier - and cheaper - transport options. The BBC's Daniel Nasaw looks at what Washington DC is doing to push two-wheeled travel.

America is a land of long distances, of thousands of virtually empty square miles of prairie, farmland and baking desert and frozen tundra.

US cities sprawl on a level unseen in Europe, Canada, and Australia, a consequence of transport priorities that have long favoured motor vehicles. And in all but a handful of US cities, it is virtually impossible to get by without a car.

But in recent years, amid widespread concern about US dependence on foreign oil, high petrol prices, signs of global warming and an obesity epidemic, a number of US cities have taken steps to increase bicycle usage.

These cities hope that by adding relatively low-cost bicycle lanes, bike parking and bike sharing programmes and making other city plan adjustments, they can lessen traffic congestion, reduce the strain on public transport, and promote healthier citizens.

From the Beeb. The biggest thing that stands out for me is the fact that Canadian and Australian cities themselves sprawl on a level that I'm pretty sure is unseen in Europe, which makes me wonder if American cities are really that much worse than ours, or if the author has a romanticized image of Canada and Australia. There doesn't seem to be a byline on the article, so I don't know if the author is from the UK, the US, or somewhere else. I kind of doubt s/he comes from Canada or Australia, though. Seriously; people commute to Toronto from Waterloo, and I've even heard of people driving from Stratford for crying out loud. That's 150 km each way, five days a week. Are the Americans worse than that??

LA County sheriff vows to ignore law if pot decriminalized

As mentioned previously, California voters will be deciding on Proposition 19, a referendum question on legalizing marijuana. The sheriff of Los Angeles County is not impressed:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said on Friday that the voters don’t matter. His deputies’ enforcement of marijuana laws would not change even if voters approved Proposition 19, which would legalize cannabis in California, on November 2, according to the Sheriff.

Source (h/t Ken at Popehat). If this does indeed happen, one hopes the authorities will do something about the matter (my suggestion would be charge Baca with kidnapping if he arrests anyone for this).

Katz in the lead again, but support soft -- poll

The latest poll has incumbent Sam Katz back in the lead:

Mayor Sam Katz has a six-point lead on Judy Wasylycia-Leis as Winnipeg's mayoral race enters the home stretch, but a more committed core of support for the challenger suggests election night may be a nail-biter.

Katz enjoys the support of 38 per cent of Winnipeg voters while Wasylycia-Leis has 32 per cent, according to a Leger Marketing telephone survey commissioned by the Winnipeg Free Press and CBC News.

Source. While this might be good news for Katz, there's a complication:

Survey respondents were asked to rate their interest in the race, on a scale of one to 10. The average interest for a Wasylycyia-Leis supporter was 6.5 out of 10, while Katz supporters averaged 5.4 out of 10, Scholz said.

Furthermore, 25 per cent of Wasylycia-Leis supporters rated their interest at nine or 10 out of 10, compared to only nine per cent of Katz supporters who did so.

"Her voters are significantly more interested in this election than his voters," Scholz said.

"That means her voters are more likely to come out than his are. If there's anything to prevent them, such as bad weather or a TV show, there's a good chance he's not going to get the vote out."

So, if Judy's campaign is able to keep things moving (not to mention the campaigns of council candidates who are onside with her) she has an excellent chance of winning.

More commentary on the Toronto mayoral race

Much as the prospect of teabaggers winning control of the US Congress is a bit worrisome (but see here for some perspective on that), the prospect of someone who is a teabagger in all but name becoming mayor of Canada's largest city is more than a little stomach-churning. But as noted before, not everyone thinks Smitherman is enough of an improvement on Ford to be worthy of support. The Star's Royston James has this to say:

So, before you hold your nose and vote Smitherman, you should ask yourself: What is it about Ford that scares me? Who and what am I voting for? Why am I voting against someone? Because, holding your nose and voting, well, stinks — especially after the vote.

So what are you want from next Monday’s vote?

If your priority is to get someone at city hall who can stand on the international and national stage and represent Toronto — because he speaks well and “looks like a mayor,” then maybe Smitherman gets your vote hands-down. His years as deputy premier were a rehearsal for the role. He is motor mouth.

If your priority is to continue the legacy left by outgoing mayor David Miller — an ethic of growth in city services and civic staff, bike lanes and European-style streetcars, environmental initiatives and making Toronto the greenest city on the planet — then Joe Pantalone is your candidate.

And if you are concerned about city hall spending and the growth of the city’s budget and the perennial fiscal deficit even after hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been added to the ledger, then Ford has earned a penny-pinching reputation.

Now, if you find Ford’s anti-spending policies so repulsive that he must be stopped, then you might be careful with your dalliance with Smitherman, especially if your concern is the diminution or destruction of city services. On that score, both candidates are closer than the Anybody-but-Ford crowd lets on.

From the city budget perspective, Smitherman may even be worse for you.

That sounds strange given what we already know about Ford, but James makes some good points:

First, he advocates a tax freeze in 2011, turning his back on some $60 million he obviously needs. Not even Ford does that.

Second, Smitherman plans to run up to Queen’s Park for a $100 million subsidy to balance the books. Again, he’s alone on that. And he suggests he will get this money even though his budget numbers show the city with a surplus of $50 million. In other words, his friend Dalton will give him $100 million and add to the province’s ballooning deficit so Toronto can net a $50 million surplus.

These two points are relevant because Smitherman intends to spend more on a range of platform promises than either Pantalone or Ford. So, he needs more “savings” to balance the books.

Now on the other side of the coin, of course, is the fact that Ford is so personally offensive. No need to go over the reasons again and again; the guy is ridiculous. And there's no doubt that the next four years will be rather embarrassing for Torontonians if Ford wins (perhaps even worse than Lastman's final term). Nonetheless, I stand by my prediction that if Ford does win he will either serve a single term, or else moderate his behaviour. And in any case, it's not a case of the entire city council being taken over by Ford clones; I'm pretty sure he won't have the votes on council to do all the crazy things he says he wants to do. So all things considered, if I lived in Toronto, I'd feel fine about casting my vote for Pantalone.

Teabagger doesn't understand the Constitution

You'd think people who are constantly ranting about the importance of upholding the Constitution would have bothered to read it. Apparently not:

The US constitution has its quirks but it is crystal clear on one issue: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," begins the first amendment, adopted in 1791. But more than 200 years later, its meaning appears to be lost on Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party favourite running for a US Senate seat.

At a debate today for the Delaware Senate seat once occupied by Vice President Joe Biden, O'Donnell appeared to be nonplussed by the wording of the first amendment, repeatedly returning to the subject and sounding incredulous after her Democratic opponent Chris Coons attempted to explain it to her.

When Coons told her the text of the constitution prohibited government from establishing any religion, O'Donnell replied in apparent bewilderment: "You're telling me that's in the first amendment?"

From the Guardian. Rather strange. It gets better, though, because the teabaggers, for the most part, subscribe to a school of constitutional thought known as originalism, the idea that when interpreting the Constitution, every effort should be made to see what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote it. Well, in this case we have some good evidence for the intention:

Not only is the first amendment perhaps the most famous part of the constitution but the "establishment clause", as it is known, is the subject of legal precedent stretching back into the 19th century. No less an authority than Thomas Jefferson, one of the constitution's authors, declared the clause's aim to build "a wall of separation between church and state".

My emphasis. Things are going to get rather interesting for some of these people when they find themselves actually getting elected (and I suspect far to many of them will for my liking). Gwynne Dyer thinks, though, that this might not be the disaster that some fear:

If all of the retired white people vote, and only the usual midterm proportion of all the other demographics does, then the Democrats will lose both houses of Congress.

So why isn’t Obama more worried about it?

He will certainly regret that so many long-serving Democratic senators and congressmen are going to lose their seats this autumn, but it really does not much matter to him who controls the Congress for the next two years.

He can’t hope to get any more legislation even through the current Congress since the Democrats lost their “super-majority” of 60 seats in the Senate last January, so what’s the difference?

Nor does Obama actually have to get more legislation through Congress right now. It would be nice to have a tough climate-change bill, no doubt, but from a political point of view, there is no new law that he simply must pass before he faces reelection himself in 2012.

Indeed, he stands a very good chance of winning a second term in 2012, in large part because of what is going to happen this November.

From the Georgia Straight. Essentially, Dyer thinks that the teabaggers will show their true colours, yet be unable to actually accomplish anything:

Getting majorities in both houses of Congress will leave the Republicans nowhere to hide on the critical issue of cutting the huge federal deficit. They have already said that they will not raise taxes—even for those earning more than $250,000 a year—and they have pledged not to cut defence spending.

What’s left? The only other big-ticket items in the budget are entitlements: health care and pensions.

The United States has not yet gone through the painful debate about how to tame the deficit that has already happened in most European countries, but it will have to do so soon.

That poses a particular problem for Republicans, because if they will not raise taxes on the rich or cut defence spending, then they have to support brutal cuts in health care and pensions or lose all credibility as deficit-cutters.

But cutting entitlements would alienate the Republicans’ own most important demographic: older white people. They will not risk that.

Dyer also points out that any ridiculous piece of legislation that they come up with, even if it passes both houses of Congress, is subject to presidential veto. The one thing he does not mention is that if the Republicans get supermajorities in both houses, they will be able to override his veto. Hopefully -- and probably -- that won't happen.