Posted Mar 14, 2014, 4:08 AM
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Join Date: Mar 2010
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http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story...beral-insider/
Quote:
Dreschel: Bratina won’t seek mayoral reelection: Liberal insider
Speculation continues to swirl about Mayor Bob Bratina's political future.
Adding fuel to the fire, an influential Liberal insider says Bratina is preparing to announce he won't seek re-election as mayor but instead will run for the federal Liberals.
The source, who asked not to be identified, says Bratina soon plans to publicly reveal he intends to seek the Liberal nomination in the inner-city riding of Hamilton Centre, currently held by New Democrat MP David Christopherson.
That dovetails with rumours that have been circulating at city hall for weeks that Bratina is eyeing a move to federal politics, hoping to ride the presumed populist coattails of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.
Bratina was out of town Thursday and could not be immediately reached.
But his reluctance to show his hand is feeding an unusually early municipal election fever.
In the past several months, Bratina has gone from saying he has no reason not to seek a second term as mayor to flatly refusing to talk about whether he has been approached to run by the Liberals.
"I'm not talking about elections right now," he told The Spectator's Mathew Van Dongen last month.
Tyler Banham, executive vice-president of the Ontario wing of the Liberal party of Canada, says he's also heard stories that Bratina is considering seeking the federal nomination in Hamilton Centre.
"I haven't spoken to him, but I've heard the same rumours that other people are hearing," said Banham, who is also president of the Hamilton Mountain federal riding.
Based on past performance, it's really not surprising Bratina hasn't declared his candidacy for mayor.
In 2010, when he was Ward 2 councillor, he didn't enter the mayor's race until September, only several weeks before the October vote and his subsequent bolt-from-the-blue win.
Similarly, there's nothing startling about him possibly casting a conjectural eye on Hamilton Centre.
Bratina was approached by the Liberals and seriously considered running against Christopherson in the spring of 2009.
Although he was prepared to take the plunge, he regretfully pulled back because rumblings of an imminent federal election played havoc with his timing. He wanted to finish his term on council, which ended in November, 2010.
Though the election clock and his ward responsibilities sidelined him, he made it clear he wasn't ruling out running down the road.
At that time, many observers believed Bratina's strong name recognition as a CHML radio host gave him a good chance of breaking Christopherson's firm grip on Hamilton Centre, which he has held since the riding was formed in 2004.
No doubt there are those who believe the same today, particularly if Trudeau develops serious momentum. Timing is everything in politics. In federal politics, so is the leader. The next scheduled federal election is October, 2015.
Though it may surprise some that Bratina has daubed himself with Liberal red rather than NDP orange, back in 2009 he described himself as falling between the two colours.
"I would say I'm probably somewhere between the left liberals and the right NDP," he said.
Since then, he's clearly moved deeper into the Liberal camp, as his controversial mayoral endorsement of the Ontario Liberals in the 2011 provincial election proved.
By any estimation, Bratina has had a rocky three years as mayor. But as the incumbent, he's still in the catbird seat, still the guy to beat.
If he bows out rather than chases a second term, we can fully expect a colony of mayoral candidates to emerge from the woodwork. It's quite possible another sitting councillor or two would join Brian McHattie on the campaign trail.
In the meantime, if the swelling buzz is to believed, Bratina may be keeping his cards close because he's weighing or has weighed his chances in a larger political theatre.
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