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::saturday, november the first, two thousand and three
CODE JOCKEY AND PHOTOGRAPHER MARK WICKENS is the third blogger to sign on with a link back to this blog, with a promise of an election-themed post to come. And my pal Marc Weisblott has pledged to post five short features this week on fringe candidates, exlusive to this blog, or at least that's what I think he said. Things seem to be rolling along nicely.
Unfortunately, my e-mail to banana counting monkey bounced back. If you're reading this, bcm, please get in touch.
- Rick McGinnis - 11:48pm - link
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CARTOONIST AND BLOGGER BRETT LAMB is the second Toronto blogger to hop on board this short ride. He's done a few cartoons on the election, my favorite of which, so far, is this take on three candidates, filtered through an inexplicably popular Canadian sitcom:
- Rick McGinnis - 02:32pm - link
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ANTHONY OF THE MEATRIARCHY BLOG is the first blogger to post back to this site, with an overview of the election from his perch in Burlington where he's just moved and is, alas, unable to vote in the upcoming contest. Here's his take on one mayoral candidate:
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John Tory is the only candidate with real business credentials having been commissioner of the CFL and also President of Rogers. Ok a monopoly business and a failing sports league aren't exactly Fortune 500 material but it's better than the others have...As it stands right now his failure to appeal to the right in an organized way has played into NDP front-runner Miller's hands. Tory has also been dogged by allegations that he bribed another candidate (John Nunziata) to drop out of the race. The charges seem a little spurious but in the absence of real issues the media has beaten the story to death.
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- Rick McGinnis - 02:26pm - link
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IN TEN DAYS, the city will vote in a new mayor, new councillors and school trustees. As elections go, municipal contests are considered low drama affairs, lacking the ideological gravitas or the high stakes of national battles or the peculiar regional tsuris of provincial (or, south of the border, state) elections.
Voter turnout in municipal elections tends to run lower than in other contests, and the results of these elections, with rare exceptions - a change of leadership in cities like New York, London, or Paris, virtually states in themselves - are rarely reported outside of commuting distance to a city.
I think this is a shame. More than that, I think it's wrongheaded, even destructive. A national election rouses passions and partisan fervor, but the outcome, except, perhaps, in times of crisis, is almost an abstraction. Debating and meditating over the issues in a national election is an almost philosophical business, and for most holders of the franchise to vote, it can almost seem like trying to influence the course of a comet, or the orbit of some far-off planet.
Provincial (or state) elections influence the weather a bit closer to home, but since they're also fought along party lines, the fog of partisan political rhetoric also fills the air and turns issues into ideology. It's a shame, because this is where a voter's will and desire actually intersects with the machinery of government, with the gears, pipes, and spigots where tax money is converted back into services that really have an impact on our lives.
Municipal elections, however, are where the ideology and political rhetoric peels away to reveal the brute reality of governing and being governed. This is where you tax dollars are turned into roads and sewers, schools and parks, public buildings and private development. This is where decisions are made about what goes where, and who gets what, and in the banal sphere of daily life, it's where politics and reality meet, with reality firmly holding all the cards.
In ten days, this city will go to the polls. I've invited a group of Toronto bloggers to devote some of their daily blog energies to talking about how they're voting, why they're voting and - failing that - why they're not voting. For a variety of reasons - the prospect of an entirely new council, the fact of a new mayor, the critical state of municipal affairs after eight years of having a primate in the mayor's office - this is an important election, at least in my opinion. As soon as this first entry is posted, I'll be sending out an invitation to the bloggers listed on the left, in the hope that they'll feel moved to post their thoughts on the looming election. Whatever they post, if they post anything at all, will be collected and linked from here, a site that I'm hoping will function as a clearinghouse for opinions on the contest at hand.
I'll also link to local media whenever they print something that seems relevant or pivotal. In ten days, I'll post the results, and do a day or two of epilogue. Then this blog will end. If you're reading this, it means that someone on the list has linked to it, and all is going according to plan. If not, then there's no point writing another word...
- Rick McGinnis - 11:02am - link
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