This Week in Toronto

Everyone ready for a game of Liberal musical chairs?

As you've probably heard, George Smitherman has left the provincial government to make a run for Mayor of Toronto. The general consensus has that race as a clash between Smitherman and John Tory - I expect my vote will go to Smitherman, but Leaf fans love a perennial loser, so maybe Tory will be able to pull it off.

Regardless, Smitherman's departure opens up Toronto Centre and, no mater how bad things may be going for Dalton McGuinty, that's about as safe as seats come. One of the candidates for the prize Liberal nomination will be former Winnipeg Mayor Glen Murray, who would add some star power to a Liberal caucus which has lost some big names over the past year. I was at a well-attended Murray campaign event last night - also there was Smitherman who is endorsing Murray.

It appears Sachin Aggarwal won'tbe going for the Toronto Centre nom, but the federal Liberals will be losing some talent, in the form of Rocco Rossi, who has helped dramatically boost party fundraising numbers this year. Yesterday, Rocco announced he would be tossing his hat into the Toronto mayoralty race. The interesting twist here is that Rossi was Tory's campaign manager when Tory came close to defeating David Miller back in 2003. It's hard to say how Rossi will fare - at the very least he should out-tweet the other candidates in the race.

You May Now Be Seated

John Tory's Awesome Quest for the Golden Seat has gone into overtime, but it may finally be nearing its conclusion.

And the tory making the supreme sacrifice for Tory? It's Laurie Scott, a young woman whose stock in the party had been on the rise. Go figure. Regardless, the Tory side show can be expected to continue for a few more months while he campaigns in the by election. Which means it may not be until next fall before Tory takes his seat on the opposition benches at Queen's Park, effectively giving McGuinty a free ride for the first half of his third term in office.

Tories keep Tory...

...with a very Clarkish 66.9%.

Given there was open organizing on both sides, I think 2/3 seems like a big enough show of support to keep him on. I guess the real question now is if everyone gets on board for the next four years or not.