Why vote for a crazy third party guy?

The 2003 mayoral race had a 38% voter turn out and Miller got 43% of the vote. In other words, Miller was elected by a minority of a minority. When a politician sees numbers like that, the very real take away is he/she only has to get his/her core constituency out to the polls. That can mean you just have to get the angry white men out to the polls to win and the rest really don't much matter as they certainly won't drag their ass away from Halo to vote.

So, for those who are gob smacked a guy like Ford (a guy who just makes up numbers on the fly, wants to close Toronto to immigrants, etc.) can be a couple short weeks away from being mayor, well, you should not be so surprised. Ford knows who will turn out to elect him. The rest of us simply don't matter because we don't make ourselves matter.

It's ironic that the level of government that really does have the most power over our day-to-day happiness is the level of government most ignored by the voter. It can be something as simple as putting a traffic light with a left hand turn light at the end of your street. Instead of now having to wait 10 minutes to hang a left on your drive to work, you can get through that light in 2 minutes. This is the level of government that can put, say, an extra express bus that gets you to work/home 15 minutes faster. How much is 15 minutes of extra sleep worth to you? It's the level of government that can get the cops to put an extra patrol car in your neighborhood every night. Or take those patrol cars away.

I'm of the personal opinion that a mayor can't turn a down economy into a booming economy. Toronto's economy is bottom up. It's the sum total of all the small decisions we all make. However, a bad mayor and bad city council can certainly get in the way of an upswing in the economy or make a downturn more miserable for all of us.

Businesses move to cities and remain in cities not just because of taxes. There's a reason Bill Gates moved Microsoft from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Seattle. He couldn't get talented programmers to move to Albuquerque. There's nothing there for them. But he could get the best people all around the world to move to Seattle. It's the same reason William Shockley, the inventor of the transistor, moved the locus of transistor development from New Jersey to Northern California and started Silicon Valley. A livable city -- full of art, culture, great restaurants to match any taste, and good transportation -- is a city talented programmers, engineers, lawyers, investment bankers, scientists, etc. want to move to. And guess what? Business owners also want to move to these kinds of cities too and will pay a premium in taxes if it means their family is happy, their workers are happy, and they can get the best talent.

Guess what? These are elements a good local government can have control over or screw up royally.

But if we're not participating at the ballot box, we're telling candidates their best bet to getting elected is lining up their special interest, be it angry white men, unions, developers, conspiracy nuts, whatever. Angry white men don't want brown people opening their funny smelling restaurants next door. Unions want to price public transit out of reach. Developers want to fence off water fronts. Conspiracy nuts, well, conspiracy nuts just kind of entertain us all. Don't they?

Now, many people will argue they don't vote simply because the top candidates are so piss poor. And in my opinion this election cycle is a great example. In my 25 years as a legal voter, I've never seen such a pack of do-nothing idiots asking for my vote. But I will vote. Because I don't want to contribute to the low voter turn out. But Ford, Rossi, et al. aren't worth the bit of graphite used to put an X next to one of their names.

My suggestion is keep the voter turn out rate up but vote for a crazy third party guy. At the same time, I'm not sure I want to give an anti-vaxxer or a neo-nazi my vote. "Well, at least there are 983 visionaries in Toronto who recognize the need to for a final solution for the Tamil problem!"

Anyway. Enjoy.