Philip Alves

Embattled-mayor Linda Jackson’s number one booster may throw his hat into the ring of municipal politics come 2010.

Simon Strelchik has long felt a bond with the New Democratic Party. He remembers a 1993 classroom exercise that asked students what political party they’d vote for if given the chance. He voted NDP.

Ask former broadcast journalist Peter Kent what brought him to Thornhill and he’ll say, “Serendipity.” The truth, though, isn’t that simple.

Former mayor Michael Di Biase says he feels “comfortable that just retribution” has been meted out after last week’s dismissal of Vaughan City Clerk John Leach.

The first referendum question asked of Ontario voters in 83 years has yet to grab the attention of people in the ridings of Toronto-Danforth and Beaches-East York, observers say.

The small pencils wielded by millions of Ontario voters were worn out on Oct. 10 picking who would get into government and the process by which future governments would be determined.

The referendum choice came down to keeping the first-past-the-post or switching to a mixed-member proportional representation system.

Greg Sorbara, Ontario’s once and future finance minister, predicted in his nomination speech back on Sept. 6 that he would “sweep Vaughan from every corner of the riding”.

Sorbara will soon be trading in the broom for a shovel in the new majority Liberal government.

Rookie PC candidate Peter Shurman benefited from the fickle nature of the riding’s electorate, beating Liberal incumbent Mario Racco by 1,700 votes in Wednesday’s election — a landslide by Thornhill standards.

Four years ago, the voters of Thornhill ousted their incumbent MPP in a close race.

In 1999, four years before that, the voters of Thornhill dumped their incumbent MPP in another airtight race.

For candidates outside the big four parties, getting their message out can be the most important goal

The big-top tents of the four major parties in Ontario politics have front doors that are well-defined squares. To get inside, a candidate needs to be a square, more or less.

But what if a round or a triangular politico comes along? What’s an activist dodecagon to do?

The Greg Sorbara juggernaut is steaming toward the Oct. 10 provincial election with such momentum that only a divinely poked stick through the spokes of the Liberal incumbent’s machine could cause a derailment.

In other words — those of political observers, to be specific — Sorbara has nothing to worry about as Vaughan voters head to the polls to mark their ballots in favour of one of the riding’s five contenders: PC candidate Gayani Weerasinghe, the NDP’s Rick Morelli, Green candidate Russell Korus, independent Savino Quatela or the front-running Sorbara.

The brows of Vaughan’s subway supporters furrowed during last week’s televised leaders’ debate when provincial NDP leader Howard Hampton said the Spadina extension should end at York University. Hampton’s position is not new, but it is contrary to what his Vaughan candidate, Rick Morelli, is on the record as saying.

Hoping to make political hay out of a stage trick, challenger Peter Shurman conjured up images of a “magic subway” and a “magic hospital” and then tried to convince 100 students at St. Elizabeth Catholic High School that it was all a figment of Mario Racco’s imagination.