Timing’s key for mayoral hopefuls

Former city councillor David Soknacki will register as a mayoral candidate Monday morning.

Mayor Rob Ford is already on the ballot, having filed his paperwork Thursday. But it looks like the rest of the likely-to-runs — Karen Stintz, John Tory, Olivia Chow and Denzil Minnan-Wong — won’t be getting in for at least another month, possibly as late as early spring.

In a 10-month campaign, when is the right moment for a candidate to make it official?

Rocco Rossi, who took on Ford and George Smitherman in the last election, says the timing question is a balancing act that’s different for everyone.

In 2010, Rossi signed up as soon as the nomination process opened.

“It was absolutely necessary for me to go early because my name recognition was so slow and municipal politics, without party backing, is basically biased to incumbency,” he said.

Back then, Rossi was a heavyweight in political circles, having served formerly as the Liberal Party of Canada director, but unknown to the broader public.

There’s also the issue of money. Candidates can’t start fundraising until they’ve registered. A viable mayoral campaign needs a little more than a million dollars. And all of that takes time.

The downside is that Toronto’s municipal election period is one of the longest — perhaps the longest — in the country. It spans 10 long and expensive months. Registration means candidates can accept donations, but also means they can start spending. Staff, signage, a website, an office, launching a brand — a million dollars goes fast, Rossi said.

There’s also a practical benefit to watching from the sidelines as long as possible.

“The sooner you get in, the sooner you have to answer questions. And for some who don’t have to worry as much about name recognition, you don’t want to have to answer those questions until the very last moment, tactically,” he said.

“We’re facing somewhat of an uphill battle when it comes to name recognition.” SUPRIYA DWIVEDI DAVID SOKNACKI’S SPOKESPERSON

Once this back and forth starts, it can’t be undone.

“You could be put on the defensive earlier than you want to be,” he said.

Rossi, who is now the president of Prostate Cancer Canada, had been the CEO of Ontario’s Heart & Stroke Foundation before he quit to run for mayor. Though it was not his first dalliance with local politics.

In 2003, Rossi ran John Tory’s near-miss campaign against David Miller. Now that he was the candidate, Rossi was hoping to inherit Tory’s centre-right base.

For an unknown, he got off to a reasonable start. A January 2010 Angus Reid-Toronto Star poll put Rossi’s support at 15 per cent, with Smitherman way out in front. Then everything fell apart for him — and everyone else in the race — at the end of March, after Ford declared.

“It was surreal. From the moment he came in, I mean, he just sucked up all of the oxygen. And I can’t think of anything (I would have done differently) that would have made a significant difference,” Rossi said.

Ford had a rock-hard brand on taxes, waste and entitlements. It was a message that resonated with the mood of the electorate.

At the time, it made sense for Ford to wait a few months before getting in, the same way it makes sense for Tory — who now has his radio show on Newstalk1010 — and Chow, one of the most high-profile politicians in the country.

But this time around, Rossi says he wasn’t surprised to hear the mayor filed his papers early.

“I think he wants to send a clear message to everyone — in particularly those on the centre right — that he will be there. And that makes the math on the centre right very difficult, because he does have a hard core of support,” Rossi said.

For the 2014 campaign, Soknacki will be the Rossi in the race. Soknacki is a businessman, a former columnist with Metroland and during his time on council served as the city’s budget chief. As a right-leaning candidate with business bona fides, Soknacki has the resume, just not the name recognition.

“We’re facing somewhat of an uphill battle when it comes to name recognition and don’t really have the luxury of a daily radio talk show or an upcoming book tour to spread our message or get David’s name out there,” said his spokesperson, Supriya Dwivedi, taking a not-so-subtle jab at Tory and at Chow, who will soon release a well-timed memoir.

Dwivedi also said Soknacki “has been quite clear from the onset that he intended to register early, and doesn’t really believe in playing the ‘will he or won’t he’ game with registration.”

He has said he will file his paperwork at 10:15 a.m. Monday. Afterwards, he plans to hold a news conference, where he’ll unveil a policy pledge around “mayoral ethics and transparency.”