Vaughan, Carroll already eyeing the mayor’s chair
Potential rivals blaming Ford for early election talk
With Mayor Rob Ford now in permanent campaign mode, Councillors Adam Vaughan and Shelley Carroll are among those seriously thinking about challenging him in 2014.
But TTC chair Karen Stintz, perhaps the strongest rival after her big win over Ford on transit expansion, is standing as firm as one can 31 months before the vote: “I’m not running for mayor.”
Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-spadina) puts the early talk of replacing Ford down to public dismay over the mayor’s performance on the budget, transit and other issues that have dramatically weakened his grip on council.
“Ford has been a disaster. I care about this city and it’s adrift right now,” Vaughan said. “I’m not sure I’m the answer, but somebody has to be.
“A group of significant people of different stripes, including some who quite frankly surprised me, has asked me to think about it seriously, and I am.”
The former TV reporter, known for work on planning issues and for gleefully aiming verbal darts at Ford allies, won’t say who approached him.
Factors dissuading him from a 2014 run include his young children and a reluctance to relinquish guidance of some projects in his busy downtown ward.
Carroll said she went public late last month when a participant in a “candidate school” forum asked point-blank if she will take on Ford.
“Absolutely I’m considering it, and I would be a fool to try to be coy about it,” Carroll (Ward 33, Don Valley East) said in an interview Friday.
“There is unprecedented grassroots interest in how to get involved to help a candidate, how to start a progressive wave.”
She said that even before Ford declared the campaign unofficially underway on the issue of a subway or light rail for Sheppard Ave., and called for a slate of like-minded councillors, his councillor brother Doug set the tone with repeated threats to help defeat colleagues if they didn’t back the mayor’s agenda.
“Some of us have been telling the councillors who received the threats: ‘You have to record how you served people in the ward, document it, so you can show the voters in 2014,’ to help them get reelected,” Carroll said. “But frankly, I think we should be governing instead of campaigning.”
Both challengers would face bare knuckles.
With Carroll — former mayor David Miller’s budget chief and policy aide — conservatives would no doubt frame the ballot question as a return to Miller’s left-leaning activist government.
Vaughan, a consummate down- towner, said in the past he didn’t know if he could represent suburbs. He now says common concerns among city residents, including transit and affordable housing, transcend those differences. Other names bandied about, whether they want it or not, include radio host and former Ontario Conservative Leader John Tory, Ford council ally Michael Thompson, and rookie councillors Josh Colle and Kristyn Wong-tam. And many at city hall simply refuse to believe Stintz won’t run, despite her repeated, emphatic denials. Lorne Bozinoff, of Forum Research, did a February poll that suggested, were the election held then, Tory or Vaughan could beat Ford, while Ford-carroll would be a dead heat. A mid-march poll suggested that either Stintz or Vaughan could beat Ford — with Vaughan even winning Etobicoke — but that Ford would prevail if it was a three-way race (as was the case in the last election). One thing is certain, Bozinoff said: “Rob Ford has revolutionized people’s interest in city hall.”