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2014 Municipal Election: Toronto Mayoral Race

Admiral Beez said:
My English soul skipped a beat there. Againcort? Honestly.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt
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Oh wow. I've seen the word "Agincourt" hundreds of times and never once have I realized that there's no "again" in the word. Oh well.

A few months ago I made a post on UT about how whenever I see old English words with "e" at the end (eg. shoppe, towne, Bloore), I always include the "e" in my mental pronunciation of it. Your English soul must really hate me :cool:
 
salsa said:
Thing is, the subway will have stops at Lawrence, STC, and Sheppard, while SmartTrack will be only a few kilometres to the west with stations at Lawrence, Ellesmere, Sheppard, Finch, and Steeles. Those subway riders would be drawn from the same territory that SmartTrack would serve. Building both therefore dilutes the value either service would provide. Also, a large amount of potential subway riders were projected to come from Markham. The model assumed that Markhamites would drive to Scarborough and park their cars there to take the subway for trips to downtown. Obviously they should be on the Stouffville GO service / Smart Track, but demand models have been used before to inflate demand for new subways either with unreasonably rosy land use forecasts or by selective omission of competing services. If the GO corridors really can handle frequent service, and both SmartTrack and the Scarborough subway are built, then the expected subway demand may never materialize. Toronto will have paid a high premium to finance infrastructure beyond what it actually needs.

At least that's what I read on Steve Munro's blog.
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Look at the bright side: The Markham residents who were included in the ridership projections were never actually going to use the subway, so it's not like SmartTrack or GO RER will make it any worse in that regard.
 
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Strategist voting. From The Star, at this link.

Strategic voting: A troubling factor in Toronto’s race for mayor?

Pundits and partisans believe voting against a candidate, rather than for the voter’s top choice, could play a significant role in next week's election.

“I have come to a very uncomfortable decision: to hold my nose and vote for John Tory. I urge all (Olivia) Chow supporters to look at the consequences of another Ford for four years and vote strategically for Tory.†— Toronto Star letter writer Ken Chevis.

Strategic voting in the 2014 Toronto mayoral race has become a hot and contentious topic — one that pundits and partisans suggest is a symptom of a flawed municipal electoral process that needs revamping.

“The last four years have been such a polarizing time for Torontonians, in terms of the Ford factor, that in a way it’s understandable that the issue of strategic voting may be prevalent for a significant number of voters,†Ryerson University politics professor Myer Siemiatycki said Saturday.

Those in the ABF (Anybody But Ford) camp are struggling with two impulses, Semiatycki said: Do I vote for the candidate I most prefer, or do I vote for the person who has the best chance of beating Doug Ford (open Doug Ford's policard)?

“That’s the no-man’s-land in which strategic voting dilemmas start to play out and, potentially, even become agonizing for voters.â€

Brian Kelcey, campaign manager for former Toronto mayoralty candidate David Soknacki, said the message they heard knocking on doors was an “overwhelming strategic voting lesson loud and clear.â€

“People said to David, ‘We love you, we love your ideas, you’ve got the best platform, but I’ve got to make my choice based on getting rid of Rob or Doug Ford — and maybe talk to me next time,’†Kelcey said Saturday.

He finds the strategic vote trend troubling.

“It’s a matter of voters choosing to vote in a way that serves to vote against somebody rather than making a conscious, positive choice to vote for someone based on their normal political affiliations or normal beliefs.â€

Michael Laxer, a self-described socialist candidate running in Etobiocke’s Ward 6, is also disturbed that voters, especially those inclined to support Olivia Chow, now plan to vote for John Tory because recent polls place him as the frontrunner.

“John Tory has become the strategic, all embodying alternative to Doug and Rob Ford (open Rob Ford's policard). He’s seen as the person you have to vote for if your apparent objective is to stop the Fords and their agenda,†Laxer said.

But Laxer says there is a “dangerous logic†in strategic voting for those wanting a progressive alternative to the Ford brothers when Tory’s politics are not all that much different — minus what Tory refers to as the “chaos and division.â€

“John Tory is presenting himself now as a centrist, but he’s not. He was the head of the Conservative Party. He is blue-blood Bay Street as it gets,†Laxer said. “He is the embodiment of the corporate and right-wing agenda in Toronto and I believe he will be a very strong, fierce and very effective opponent of unions, workers and public services and programs in the city.â€

Asked last week about someone “agonizing†about voting with his head or heart, Chow responded: “Why would we replace a Tory with another Tory?â€

Jeff Silverstein, Doug Ford’s campaign manager, said the pundits are wrong if they say and believe that the central ballot-box issue is getting rid of the Fords.

“It’s about record and conviction,†Silverstein said Saturday evening. “If anyone is going to be guided by strategic voting, it will be people who will want a mayor who will carry on with the progrss that has been made.â€

He disputes there is an anyone-but-Ford sentiment, and if “it existed at all it was a product of the mayor, directed at the mayor. Doug is not his brother.â€

Ryerson’s Siemiatycki says this could be the last municipal election where voters have to struggle with the dilemma of strategic voting, if the province brings in a ranked ballot initiative, which has already been approved by city council.

“There’s recognition that there’s a flaw in our current election system; that it kind of requires too many voters to not vote their preferred choice sometimes and, secondly, it does elect people with less than 50 per cent of votes cast.â€

Allowing voters to pick their first and then second choies would give politicians a “stronger mandate perhaps, with more legitimacy,†he said.
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Who would you vote for?
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I don't get this aversion to strategic voting. We make strategic decisions everyday concerning least-worst choices.

Even with ranked ballots you'll still have strategic voting, as a lot of people will choose their first and second picks based on attempts to block the candidates they don't want. You can try to prevent this by banning polls (impossible in today's interconnected world, IMO), but people will still try.

When it comes down to it, we shouldn't care why someone votes. Maybe they would have voted for Nikki Benz for her ability to, uhmm.... anyway, unless you have a mind reader, there is no way to stop strategic voting. This is especially true when there is a strongly polarizing figure that people feel must be wholly stopped or supported.
 
For me this election is about getting rid of the Fords, so I will be voting for John Tory as he has the best chance to do this. I wouldn`t mind voting for Olivia Chow but she has no chance and a vote for her to me is a wasted vote and makes it more likely for Ford to get in.
 
Adjei said:
For me this election is about getting rid of the Fords, so I will be voting for John Tory as he has the best chance to do this. I wouldn`t mind voting for Olivia Chow but she has no chance and a vote for her to me is a wasted vote and makes it more likely for Ford to get in.
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I'm going to wager many people share your line of thinking; My only concern is ... are there enough ...

I honestly don't like Olivia Chow ... not her policies so much ... but rather her intellect / ability to debate ...
 
Daniel Dale @ddale8
Pretty impressive: 124,798 people had voted in advance voting as of last night. That's 15% of the entire 2010 vote.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Oh wow. I've seen the word "Agincourt" hundreds of times and never once have I realized that there's no "again" in the word. Oh well.

A few months ago I made a post on UT about how whenever I see old English words with "e" at the end (eg. shoppe, towne, Bloore), I always include the "e" in my mental pronunciation of it. Your English soul must really hate me :cool:
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Going further up the line, I always pronounced it "Milken" rather than "Milliken." I never realized the error of my ways until I was on a GO train and the announcer pronounced it properly.
 
Discussing an older topic, Doug Ford trying to classify Tory as "not one of us" is one of the dumbest campaign moves, and not just because he himself is part of the upper class. The fact of the matter is that it takes a lot of money to successfully run for mayor of a metropolis like Toronto. If you want a working class schmo as your mayor, there are plenty to pick from of the 60+ candidates. Personally, I'll choose the most qualified for the job, regardless of social class.

Maybe Ford is trying to appeal to some level of ethics? For example, several years ago at the Live 8 concert in Barrie I was having a conversation with an older rocker lady. She believed that Motley Crue came out to the event for the love of music, while Celine Dion only did her appearance because of money. While there is likely much wrong with her reasoning, it is what Ford is trying to frame reality with. Perhaps a better example is alternative artists being "true" to their music in a sea of sellouts, even though said alternative acts probably had to compromise plenty of artistic integrity to get their stuff played on the radio.

The key difference is that one is entertainment, the other is real world policy.
 
Electrify said:
Going further up the line, I always pronounced it "Milken" rather than "Milliken." I never realized the error of my ways until I was on a GO train and the announcer pronounced it properly.
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Same thing happened to me on a streetcar. Strachan which I had always said as strawn. The driver called stracken. Still not sure who's right.sorry o.t.
 
nohostages said:
Same thing happened to me on a streetcar. Strachan which I had always said as strawn. The driver called stracken. Still not sure who's right.sorry o.t.
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Hey thanks Anna! I am assuming that our Strachan Ave. Is named for the Aberdeen born Toronto bishop in the article, so the strawn pronunciation would be his preference.
 
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