There is a sad feeling to Stephen Soundheim’s haunting ballad “Send in the Clowns.” It also has a special meaning to me when dealing with the also rans in elections. They are a sad lot. They get little respect and few votes. And yet, you can not talk them out of it. It might be just a dream but it is their time in the sun.
The reminder of this category in the current mayoralty by-election in Toronto came the other day when Celina Caesar-Chavannes, former member of parliament from Whitby threw her bonnet into the by-election. She was reported as being candidate number 29. Anyone who has tried to read her book on her experience in Ottawa is rather unlikely to see any merit in putting her in the Toronto mayor’s chair.
While the 2015 federal election was an easy time for liberals to get elected, the sunshine did not last for the next four years. Ms. Caesar-Chavannes did not realize that the role of the parliamentary secretary for prime minister Trudeau was similar to American vice presidents, to be seen and not heard. It was obvious that it was not the treatment she was prepared for. She did not last in federal politics.
Nor is there likely to be a future for her in Toronto city politics. With no municipal experience, she might not be fully prepared for the demands of the mayor’s office in a city the size of Toronto. It might not be her cup of tea either.
Some time in the next month, the media are going to decide who the top three or four might be and give them the close attention. While they will list the others there is no way they can waste much time or space to help them promote their hopes.
In my last mayoralty campaign I was asked to manage the ground game. This involved the training of volunteers, directing their canvassing for the candidate and also supporting the candidate’s canvas—making sure that he was seen canvassing in every key part of the city. The bad news I found was that the city had few experienced canvassers and the canvassers I had were from all three political parties. I had the embarrassing situation of conservatives calling me during the subsequent federal campaign thanking me for the training. One of my best pupils used my advice to help a conservative win one of the two city electoral districts.
Another difficulty with that last campaign was the feeling of tension from the out of town campaign manager who knew how to spend money but not strategically. I was there one time when he and the candidate were discussing numbers and that is part of the ground game planning. He told the candidate that 10 to 15 per cent of votes would go to the bottom three also-ran candidates. If he had looked closer at his own polls, he would have known as I did, that those bottom three would not garner three per cent of the vote. He made the mistake of saying I was wrong. He would only put ten dollars on it but I took great delight in claiming the ten bucks at the victory party for our team.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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