[LINK] Mayor George Smitherman?

[rfmcdonald]

Back in September I reported on the open secret that George Smitherman, provincial parliamentarian from the Liberal Party and deputy premier, was strongly considering running for the position of Mayor of Toronto.

He's come out.

After months of speculation, George Smitherman is making the move to municipal politics.

Ontario’s Deputy Premier and Energy Minister confirmed in an interview Sunday that he is leaving Dalton McGuinty’s cabinet to run for Toronto’s mayoralty in November, 2010.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a long, long time,” George Smitherman said. “In my mind, in my heart, I’m settled on doing it.”

The downtown Toronto MPP informed Mr. McGuinty Sunday of his resignation, and will make an announcement Monday. He will be replaced as energy minister by Gerry Phillips, who held that job in 2007-08, but the government will not name a new deputy premier.

[. . .]

“I’m putting a lot on the line,” Mr. Smitherman acknowledged yesterday. “But it feels so right to me, because I have every confidence about the outcome.”

To try to achieve that outcome, he will vow to bring the same force of personality to municipal politics that he has to Ontario’s legislature. While pledging to make job creation a centrepiece of his platform, he suggested it is his experience – more than specific policies – that will give him the edge.

“Anybody can come up with a platform,” he said. “But who has a track record of determination to actually see things through? I think that is a strength of my candidacy; I’m a person who has a track record of transformational action.”

“So many people have said to me, ‘the mayor has no power,’ ” Mr. Smitherman said. “In a certain sense, my candidacy is to challenge that.”