讨论讨论？
OTTAWA — Fresh from a victorious vote on the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park, Mayor Larry O’Brien plans to announce his intention to run again for the city’s top job first thing this morning outside his swank downtown condo building.
“I don’t want to take the progress that we’ve made, however controversial it’s been from time to time, and let it go back to the same old approach of politics,” said O’Brien in an interview Tuesday.
In an election where there isn’t a single burning issue, the campaign will likely come down to a question of leadership, and leadership is personal.
“I hope it is about leadership because leadership is about getting things done,” O’Brien said. “If you want milquetoast and calmness and the chief of protocol, then you know who you can vote for.”
O’Brien is up against Jim Watson, a former Ontario cabinet minister and mayor of pre-amalgamation Ottawa in the late 1990s, and longtime politician and ‹Councillor Alex Cullen.
Even though the election is four months away, the campaign is already promising to be characterized by personal slights and name calling, with overtones of nastiness.
Although the mayor vowed “to stay on the high road,” he has already been criticized for calling Watson a “scaredy cat, little old lady” for doubting the city can afford the new light rail plan approved by O’Brien’s council.
“I didn’t think that was name-calling,” O’Brien said Tuesday when asked about it. “I just thought it was an accurate reflection.”
O’Brien said he wouldn’t release his re-election platform until later in his campaign, although he mentioned traffic management and economic development as areas where the city needed to improve.
He said he would not officially enter the race until the end of the summer, which is when he expects his campaign to move into full gear.
That O’Brien is lagging far behind in the polls does not seem to faze him.
A recent Citizen survey showed Watson leading with 41-per-cent of voter support, a lead so strong that Ipsos-Reid pollster Mike Colledge said this race was Watson’s race to lose.
O’Brien has only 23 per cent support, while Cullen has 11 per cent.
It may be that Watson’s near-runaway lead is one of the things that helped O’Brien confirm his decision to run again.
“As it is right now, I think the city will be sleepwalking into the next election, anointing someone as opposed of having a campaign,” he said.
And anyway, said O’Brien, “I absolutely love being the underdog. There’s nothing that’s going to make me want to get something done more than being told I can’t do it.”
He pointed out that in 2006, he was also “up against two professional politicians” — then-mayor Bob Chiarelli and former councillor Alex Munter — and started out very low in the polls.
But he wasn’t the sitting mayor in 2006. The Citizen poll also showed that O’Brien has a 45-per-cent approval rating in the city. But not all of those who like the job he’s doing would be willing to vote for him.
“That says a lot about the controversy in the first half of my term,” said O’Brien.
Indeed, the mayor’s entire four-year term has suffered from its fair share of controversy. His cancellation of the former north-south transit plan cost the city millions, including a $36-million settlement with Siemens. The unsolicited bid for the Lansdowne redevelopment project has been an emotionally divisive issue for council and communities. And O’Brien spent last spring in criminal court facing bribery charges of which he was found innocent.
But the mayor is betting that voters have put those issues behind them and will instead focus on what O’Brien will list as the city’s accomplishments under his watch: a record $1.2 billion of federal and provincial government investment in a new light rail plan; Ottawa River clean-up and sewer-system upgrades; a new convention centre; a revitalized Lansdowne and the promised return of a CFL team.
“I will put my track record of getting things done against anyone’s,” said O’Brien.
“When people use the argument that there’s been controversy and debate and even fighting at City Hall, well my goodness, that’s what they pay us to do. To come in and debate the big issues in an open process.”
O’Brien spent “tens if not hundreds” of hours discussing the pros and cons of running again with his wife Colleen, although he said he had more or less decided to have another go at the top job about four months ago.
If re-elected, O’Brien said that he would “get the job done in the next four years” and then “hand it back to the professional politicians.”
OTTAWA — Fresh from a victorious vote on the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park, Mayor Larry O’Brien plans to announce his intention to run again for the city’s top job first thing this morning outside his swank downtown condo building.
“I don’t want to take the progress that we’ve made, however controversial it’s been from time to time, and let it go back to the same old approach of politics,” said O’Brien in an interview Tuesday.
In an election where there isn’t a single burning issue, the campaign will likely come down to a question of leadership, and leadership is personal.
“I hope it is about leadership because leadership is about getting things done,” O’Brien said. “If you want milquetoast and calmness and the chief of protocol, then you know who you can vote for.”
O’Brien is up against Jim Watson, a former Ontario cabinet minister and mayor of pre-amalgamation Ottawa in the late 1990s, and longtime politician and ‹Councillor Alex Cullen.
Even though the election is four months away, the campaign is already promising to be characterized by personal slights and name calling, with overtones of nastiness.
Although the mayor vowed “to stay on the high road,” he has already been criticized for calling Watson a “scaredy cat, little old lady” for doubting the city can afford the new light rail plan approved by O’Brien’s council.
“I didn’t think that was name-calling,” O’Brien said Tuesday when asked about it. “I just thought it was an accurate reflection.”
O’Brien said he wouldn’t release his re-election platform until later in his campaign, although he mentioned traffic management and economic development as areas where the city needed to improve.
He said he would not officially enter the race until the end of the summer, which is when he expects his campaign to move into full gear.
That O’Brien is lagging far behind in the polls does not seem to faze him.
A recent Citizen survey showed Watson leading with 41-per-cent of voter support, a lead so strong that Ipsos-Reid pollster Mike Colledge said this race was Watson’s race to lose.
O’Brien has only 23 per cent support, while Cullen has 11 per cent.
It may be that Watson’s near-runaway lead is one of the things that helped O’Brien confirm his decision to run again.
“As it is right now, I think the city will be sleepwalking into the next election, anointing someone as opposed of having a campaign,” he said.
And anyway, said O’Brien, “I absolutely love being the underdog. There’s nothing that’s going to make me want to get something done more than being told I can’t do it.”
He pointed out that in 2006, he was also “up against two professional politicians” — then-mayor Bob Chiarelli and former councillor Alex Munter — and started out very low in the polls.
But he wasn’t the sitting mayor in 2006. The Citizen poll also showed that O’Brien has a 45-per-cent approval rating in the city. But not all of those who like the job he’s doing would be willing to vote for him.
“That says a lot about the controversy in the first half of my term,” said O’Brien.
Indeed, the mayor’s entire four-year term has suffered from its fair share of controversy. His cancellation of the former north-south transit plan cost the city millions, including a $36-million settlement with Siemens. The unsolicited bid for the Lansdowne redevelopment project has been an emotionally divisive issue for council and communities. And O’Brien spent last spring in criminal court facing bribery charges of which he was found innocent.
But the mayor is betting that voters have put those issues behind them and will instead focus on what O’Brien will list as the city’s accomplishments under his watch: a record $1.2 billion of federal and provincial government investment in a new light rail plan; Ottawa River clean-up and sewer-system upgrades; a new convention centre; a revitalized Lansdowne and the promised return of a CFL team.
“I will put my track record of getting things done against anyone’s,” said O’Brien.
“When people use the argument that there’s been controversy and debate and even fighting at City Hall, well my goodness, that’s what they pay us to do. To come in and debate the big issues in an open process.”
O’Brien spent “tens if not hundreds” of hours discussing the pros and cons of running again with his wife Colleen, although he said he had more or less decided to have another go at the top job about four months ago.
If re-elected, O’Brien said that he would “get the job done in the next four years” and then “hand it back to the professional politicians.”
