Ana Bailão’s campaign failed to find traction despite donations and a solid track record. Then the former mayor of Toronto weighed in.
As Ana Bailão’s campaign team busily worked in her Dundas Street West campaign office on a Wednesday morning with only days leftSenior staff ushered the flustered workers and volunteers out the door. Quiet fell on an office that had been abuzz. As the troops huddled in a cafe downstairs, a campaign office door opened and in strode the man they had long awaited: John Tory, the fallen king who they hoped would play king maker.
Bailão’s campaign team was made up of many of the same veteran operatives who helped Tory to three consecutive election victories, like campaign manager Tom Allison, pollster Nick Kouvalis and adviser Patrick Harris. She was supposed to coast in on the former mayor’s coattails. Voters still loved him but they also wanted change. Somebody like Tory — but without Tory — wasn’t enough.
Two sources told the Star that in early June, with advance voting set to begin, Tory informed Bailão he wasn’t ready to give her his nod. He told those close to him he wasn’t endorsing, “because he didn’t want to put his family back in the spotlight,” according to the first source. Shortly after Tory left Bailão’s office, her campaign released a statement and video in which he described her as “the best choice to lead this city forward and to bring it together everyday as I tried so hard to do.”
Tory took offence, Hiraishi said, and Tory and Bradford had a “heated” phone exchange. Tory also texted Bradford that he had intended to call him before the endorsement was announced but word leaked early. A Tory text to Bradford, read out by Hiraishi to the Star, included: “Your tweet about old has-beens and such was unnecessary and inconsistent with what we discussed about you as a classy, intelligent person.”The effect of Tory’s endorsement appeared to be immediate. A, to 20 per cent.
A senior Chow campaign official, who requested anonymity to disclose confidential strategy, said they had heard Tory was facing intense lobbying both for and against endorsing Bailão, and they weren’t surprised when he finally backed her. “John has always been someone who can’t make any decisions, and then he needs to be forced into making any decisions. And then when he finally makes a decision, it’s like it’s a compromise of compromises where he makes no one happy,” the source said.The source said Bailão’s team was grateful Tory backed her, but many were “disappointed that he just didn’t do it when it was going to be the most effective.
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