Ottawa Sun
Published: Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Race to this finish: Candidates take different approaches to municipal election

While voting day -- Oct. 25 -- is still more than 10 months away, the strategies of the perceived major mayoral candidates are interesting in that each is employing a different racing technique.

Alex Cullen, an avid distance and endurance athlete, is employing a full training regimen to get across the finish line this fall. He has launched his website (albeit English only) and is ensuring that he is quoted in most stories coming out of or about City Hall.

His passion for files like the environment, transit, seniors, accountability and affordable public services is well documented. And even his fiercest critics acknowledge he is well briefed on the issues. His challenge is to break through the "left wing" moniker that his name invokes if he is to garner enough votes to win.

In terms of pacing, he will run evenly throughout this race, take the hills with ease, and regardless of the polls, finish hard in October. He will leave it all on the road.

Turning to Jim Watson, he is expected to resign his seat at Queen's Park shortly in addition to his departure from the McGuinty cabinet last week. His entry into the race makes him the front runner, but he seems to be employing the walk then jog then run campaign style.

I think he underestimates his support in some red-Tory circles and overestimates his support with local Liberals. Nonetheless, his contacts database is massive, he has kept clippings on local issues for more than two decades and as everyone knows, he will attend the opening of an envelope or a late-night Zamboni cleaning session to meet with voters.

Like Cullen, he is essentially a "career politician" as Mayor Larry O'Brien has noted. However, in a city with career public servants, career political staffers, career lobbyists, career activists, and career journalists, the emotive resonance of this identification is unclear or muted at best.

Look for Watson to play up his career in public life as a positive attribute for the big chair in contrast to O'Brien's admitted challenges in transitioning from a successful corporate career to elected office.

As the frontrunner, the bilingual Watson will have to learn what attacks to engage and reframe and which to discount and ignore.

Finally, should O'Brien decide in June to run again, he will have no choice but to run a full-fledged sprint to election day. This will be punctuated by a heavy media buy after Labour Day, combined with tactics to re-connect with the suburban and rural base that supported him in 2006.

He would run on his record of projects -- Lansdowne Park, the convention centre, and mass transit -- that have finally moved after years of stagnation through successive councils with an appeal to voters to elect a "business oriented" council to support him. Right now, his schedule and duties allow him to campaign by the sheer virtue of doing his job and he is a true alpha male with an intense desire to win.

However, the biggest risk for O'Brien is if the field becomes more crowded or the debate takes on a life of its own between now and June; he may find it too difficult to dislodge voters from other candidates.

It will be fascinating to watch.