Mayor shocks no one by endorsing his deputy mayor, Joe Pantalone
Rumours circled yesterday evening, and this morning at 11 they were all confirmed. Mayor David Miller has endorsed his long-serving deputy mayor, Joe Pantalone. In the cramped hallways of an ESL school, the mayor loomed over Pantalone as he sang his praises. Pantalone, said the mayor, “is the only candidate who’s not tearing this city down” as he runs. Just in case the reporters present were missing a core issue for the pair, a large Transit City banner was being held up behind them by Pantalone volunteers.
The endorsement comes at an opportune time for Pantalone, who yesterday lost the support of an ally, Joe Mihevc. About that, Miller was pretty candid: “You know, seven years ago Mihevc told me I should drop out too. He was wrong then, and he’s wrong now.” Later, Miller added a warning against all strategic voting: “You don’t vote for an awful guy because he’s a bit less awful than someone else.”
Asked why Miller broke his silence over which candidate he wanted to be mayor, Miller had two reasons: 1) Joe asked him to (nervous chuckles all around), and 2) Miller’s been absolutely appalled by the state of the election so far. He went on to rail against candidates who, “don’t live in the same city as the people of Toronto.”
Frankly, anyone who says they know what an endorsement like this will do is probably lying. One poll said that if Miller was running again, he’d win this election. But between Rob Ford, George Smitherman, and Rocco Rossi, the anti-Miller candidates seem to be doing pretty well in the polls too. The safest bet is that the mayor’s endorsement does close to nothing, given that Pantalone hasn’t been shy about riding Miller’s coattails thus far.
