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Rob Ford's Toronto

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I'm convinced that at the municipal level, the right is much more likely to be involved in cronyism than the left (this does not necessarily hold for the province or the feds). There is a culture of wheeling and dealing among Toronto's right wing politicians that just does not exist among the left who come from the more anti-growth NYMBY culture. The people who have the ear of the right are private business owners. The people who have the ear of the left are academics and NGOs.
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sublime said:
I'm going to kick this file around another day or two, and hopefully provide some ammunition to Vaughn and Perks. Hell, maybe candidate for the mayoral office Richard Underhill could make some hay with this.
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Great news!

Please share with us. If this goes to council we need to be on our Councillors.
 
anne said:
Politics to me is about building support, forgoing short term gain for long term benefit, putting yourself in a position to understand other points of view. You don't need a business degree or experience in business to know that balancing the books is important. ...Politics is (or should be) about a common goal. Government was supposed to be "we the people", a cross-section of the people they represent. It's never that now.
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No, sadly, it's not. For whatever reason, we have reached a point where partisanship IS the goal, rather than a means to reach said goal. It's apparent at all levels of governance. And it's no stranger to the world of business either. Often, in business, it's the deftest politicians who rise, where the smartest and kindest might lose. Swimming with sharks and all.

In politics, this, IMO, can be largely credited to the professionalization and industrialization of what might once have been a craft or calling. Hell, professionalization is why the Manning Centre exists.

Rob Ford, if anything, is a professional politician. Like Jason Kenney, Tony Clement, John Baird, Rob Anders and Stephen Harper on the right ,for example. Jack Layton on the left. Maybe Mulcair as well. As far as Liberals, McGuinty was also a pro. None of these people have done F' All outside of politics. Some have law degrees, but they haven't practiced. No 'side' is immune. But it seems the Right attracts these tactical pro political weasels more so.

All - the Fords unseemly so - seem to live for the game: political wins or, when losing, spinning defeat into a vast victimology. Either way, those who have enabled them along the way expect their quid pro quo. A Jimmy Stewart type who is unexpectedly elevated to office and naively expects to kick a dent in this universe is soon hopelessly disillusioned or irreparably subsumed. Any 'amateur' who enters this arena should well expect to be a) ignored or b) chewed up and expectorated. Not saying this is good, just is what it is.
 
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