How do you know a political campaign is in trouble?

One easy way is to listen to how many questions eager reporters, in the midst of an exciting race, have at hand to fire at the candidate.

This morning Olivia Chow went down to Toronto’s waterfront to start the morning off. The microphones were there, the reporters were there ready for Chow to deliver her latest salvo of this long campaign. Not surprisingly this volley was directed at John Tory. Chow pointed out that Tory’s son has a business connection with the push for allowing jets to fly out of the Toronto Island airport. Chow opposes expanding the airport to accommodate jets. From there she went on to read out the list of other potential conflicts Tory will have if elected mayor because he is a Director on many Boards connected to Toronto political decision making. After the attack on Tory, almost as an afterthought, Chow listed the measures she would take as Mayor to ensure more “transparency and accountability” in Toronto politics.

When it came time for questions only two reporters could think of anything to ask Chow about her charges. One of the three questions was about the hubbub over the debate tonight in the north end of Toronto. And that was it.

The Chow campaign is clearly getting tired. Its headline for the news release on Chow’s event resorted to adapting the key advertising line from Doug Ford, “What’s the Story Mr. Tory?” All the Chow side could come up with was “What’s the answer about conflicts-of-interest, Mr. Tory?” The release makes only one small mention of Chow’s policy, “My platform outlines ways to strengthen the integrity commissioner and make lobbying rules stronger.” All the rest repeats what we know. John Tory has a lot of business interests in Toronto. No word from Chow on what she expects from Doug Ford and his personal holdings.

Tory answered Chow’s concerns over conflicts of interest less than an hour later. He said, “If elected I will follow all the rules.” Tory then outlined his affordable housing policy and, by the way, fielded way more than three questions. Tory’s endorsement parade continued with Art Eggleton at hand to support Tory’s housing stand. Eggleton is a former mayor, federal liberal cabinet minister and now a Senator who is focussed on social and urban issues. Tory’s housing policy starts with a commitment to spend money to begin “overdue repairs” at Toronto Community Housing. Late this afternoon TCH pointed out city council has approved almost a billion dollars for just that type of repair.

For this one the Chow campaign was ready. It released a statement asking “if John Tory does any homework at all?” Chow pointed out Tory’s “entire foundation is that there are millions of dollars sitting around, not being spent. But he’s 100 per cent wrong.” Chow will hold a news conference Saturday morning to say more on the affordable housing issue.

Today’s first mayoral candidate meeting featured Tory, Ford and Chow at Zoomer radio. The highpoint for me was the attempts by the moderator, Dale Goldhawk, to keep the candidates on topic. More than once he cut off answers as the candidates veered off course to make political points at the expense of the question. One tweeter wants to nominate Goldhawk to moderate all future debates. There’s only two weeks left but it sounds like a good idea to me.

The two main topics at the session, it really wasn’t a debate, were public transportation and issues of importance to senior citizens such as affordable housing and high taxes. There really was little new out of the two hour session. Here’s just one example: a question to each if Toronto has a revenue problem or a spending problem. Study after study, including this week’s Vital Signs report, finds that Toronto simply does not have enough revenue to fund the needs of Toronto. John Tory didn’t answer the question directly but vowed to hold property taxes to the rate of inflation and insisted that the federal and provincial governments need to step up and provide more long term funding for the city. He has said this any number of times. Doug Ford went further promising to resign if property taxes go above the rate of inflation. He went on to talk about how much money can be found by cutting waste at City Hall. No news there either. Olivia Chow agreed that there is a revenue problem and repeated that she is in favour of a more progressive Land Transfer Tax and keeping the property at or around the rate of inflation. Again no news in any of that.

After the session Chow and Ford continued their attacks on Tory. Chow kept the focus on Tory’s business connections and potential conflicts. Ford wanted Tory to come clean on his stand on the Toronto Island Airport. Tory reminded Ford he voted with all other councillors to conduct a study before any decision is made on the future of the airport.

So, with two weeks to go in the campaign, is Toronto paying attention? I looked at the front pages of Toronto’s four papers but couldn’t find one line about the Toronto election. Right after Labour Day I wrote, “The conventional take on Toronto politics is that voters wait for Labour Day before paying much attention to the campaign.” Maybe you’ll allow me to amend that to Thanksgiving weekend. As Toronto families gather for their celebration feasts here’s betting some of the talk will turn to politics, in Toronto and throughout the GTA. Perhaps those conversations will help voters make their decision. Hopefully the conversations don’t end up in shouting matches like so many of the back and forth exchanges we’ve seen on the campaign trail over the past week.