Ottawa Sun
Published: Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Discipline key to crowded Mayoral race

At least 14 names will be on the ballot for mayor on Oct. 25 after Larry O’Brien declared last week he will run for re-election and Capital Coun. Clive Doucet’s announcement Tuesday that he also wants the city’s top job.

There must be money to be made in developing an iPhone or BlackBerry app to keep track of all the mayoral candidates, but I digress.

O’Brien’s announcement last week turned the widely assumed sleepwalk victory for Jim Watson into a real race. Doucet’s entry this week turns the race into a dogfight that will have an abundant supply of rhetorical bark and personal bite.

At first glance, Doucet’s entry helps O’Brien.

Doucet is fishing for votes in the same left-of-centre, suburbs-are-bad, profit-is-evil, and new-urbanism-rules ideological pool as fellow mayoral wannabe Alex Cullen.

WARD ROOTS

He’s also, to some degree, fishing in the same geographic pool as Watson, since both of them have political roots in the main neighbourhoods of Capital ward.

And Doucet’s entry hasn’t shaken one vote loose from O’Brien’s core vote, whatever and wherever it is. Such is the early state of play with 109 sleeps to go until we head to the municipal polls.

But the number of candidates on the ballot or left-wing, centrist, and right-wing voter distinctions won’t determine Ottawa’s next mayor. Discipline, even more so than the ultimate ballot question, will determine the next leader of our city.

The next mayor will be the candidate who is disciplined enough to stay on message, disciplined enough to engage in policy- and issue-specific debate, disciplined enough to resist personal attacks, and disciplined enough to campaign consistently until election day.

While the election is still more than three months away, on this discipline dynamic, Watson is winning in terms of messaging and campaigning as he continues to frame issues on a dual axis of fiscal and personal leadership.

The longtime politician’s daily tour is so event-driven that I have told incumbents and challengers to follow him on Twitter to know what’s happening in their wards.

However, as I noted last week, campaigns matter and today’s poll numbers can change quickly as issues evolve or if a candidate loses focus.

Cullen, Doucet and O’Brien all have the capacity and discipline to fight and claw their way back.

In the weeks ahead, look for O’Brien and Cullen to question Watson’s commitment to the current mass transit plan — specifically, the downtown transit tunnel.

TAX PLANS

As well, O’Brien and Watson will go head-to-head on their respective tax level plans: Is zero still achievable? Is 2.5% a floor rather than a ceiling?

Meanwhile, Cullen and Doucet will opt for visual references, such as wading pools, neighbourhood beat cops and flu-shot clinics to illustrate the merits of their taxation planks.

Doucet will also use the Lansdowne file to push an anti-development agenda if his remarks Tuesday are any indication of his platform, and Cullen will echo this theme to a degree which dovetails nicely with his municipal lobbyist registry proposal, his only public campaign pronouncement to date.

As voters, we are guaranteed a passionate, assertive, intense and engaging race for mayor.

But discipline is still the ultimate and surest path to victory.