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Why Tories Support George Smitherman

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What could compel nearly forty Conservatives—ex–cabinet members in Mike Harris’ government among them—to put their names to an open letter endorsing George Smitherman for mayor? “He’s tough. But he’s fair,” the letter reads, distributed by former Minister of Citizenship, and Recreation and MPP for St. Andrew-St. Patrick Isabel Bassett. “He’s determined. But he’s thoughtful. And he’s right on the issues that matter to conservatives the most.” Oh, and he’s not Rob Ford.
The Star reports that in a statement tonight in response, Joe Pantalone said that “Mike Harris is back in the form of George Smitherman…Why else would the Harris team have just endorsed him?”
“Thankfully in municipal politics,” the letter—titled “Why We Support George”—reads, “party lines don’t get in the way of supporting the best candidate for the job. And we believe, hands down, that George Smitherman is the only one who can finally fix City Hall and get it focused on serving us as taxpayers.”
The entire letter is embedded below.

Get more municipal election coverage from Torontoist here.

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Comments

  • http://undefined Green Sulfur

    Tim Hudak must be losing his shit over this. Next time he attacks the Liberals’ record on spending or eHealth you just know McGuinty will trot out this letter.

  • http://www.realjohnson.com TheRealJohnson

    Harris has to know what popular opinion of him is in Toronto. This has got to be a tongue-in-cheek f— you to Smitherman.

  • http://undefined Colin

    The people to whom Isabel Bassett appeals are likely supporting Smitherman (or Rossi or Thompson) already. No Ford supporter is going to be swayed because some snooty out-of-touch elitist like Bassett supports the other guy.

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    This is pretty elaborate, for that.

  • http://www.realjohnson.com TheRealJohnson

    Yeah probably. I also just realized that Harris didn’t actually endorse him, just former members of his cabinet. Maybe conservatives are actually pushing for Smitherman in hopes that he’ll perform poorly as mayor and by the time provincial elections roll around they can use the anti-liberal sentiments in Toronto to get more seats? As you can see, I’m having a hard time accepting this at face value.

  • http://undefined Colin

    …or you actually have zero understanding of the complexity of the factions within the Conservative party. Just look at the names closely. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out.

  • http://undefined rek

    Cons don’t think that far ahead, RJ.

  • http://undefined Colin

    Actually it’s because only a Socialist is corrupt enough to even THINK of something like that.

  • rek

    You and your Socialist boogeymen.

  • http://undefined Colin

    I wasn’t going to go there, but you had to make a snide and uncalled for remark.

  • http://undefined Ben

    I doubt that any Ford supporters would be swayed by it, but not because of your erroneous slandering.
    It’s more likely that they wouldn’t even be aware of it, considering their ignorance of how ineffectual, duplicitous, abusive, pandering, and nit-picking their chosen candidate is. Ford’s track record is that of an ignorant, incompetent buffoon.

  • http://www.lethbridgerealestateblog.com lethbridge seo

    I am not saying that any of the candidates are great, but Ford is a total trainwreck, not sure how anyone could think he could do the job.