For a blog called All Politics is Local I do a piss poor job covering municipal politics. My life has gotten in the way of blogging the last few months anyway, but Toronto's mayor race is starting to head into the home stretch. In a lot of ways, the campaign starts next week. That's when lawn signs will start dotting the streets of Toronto. The ban on signs is lifted Monday October 4th at 12:01 so expect some hammering in your neighbourhood Sunday night/Monday morning. The mayor's race got a lot more interesting when Sarah Thomson dropped out and gave the semi-conscious George Smitherman campaign a needed jolt. Smtitherman is the guy that is supposed to win this thing by all logic and reason. Thomson's endorsement may be enough to solidify him as the only guy capable of avoiding the Fordcalypse.
I've been skeptical of Ford's numbers to begin with. I think part of it is I admittedly don't want them to be true. However, I think there is some reason in my thinking. Municipal politics don't generate a lot of attention from the public and those that do pay attention tend to be those who are the most pissed off. Thus, early on in a race (and we're still almost a month to E-day) the people most willing to commit in any poll are those who are angriest in this case Ford supporters. Another thing to consider is that people are much more likely to say they'll vote for a third, fourth or fifth place candidate in a poll a month out then they are on election day. Municipal polls are also terrible because nobody actually knows who to poll. There's no way for a pollster or analysts to look at the results of a poll and say "that's not right". There's just not enough data to compare it to. Miller was, according to one poll, at 70% the week before the vote in 2006 but ended up with 55%. I think we're in for a tight race. I honestly don't have a clue who wins.
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