to aim their political aspirations a little lower than the White House from time to time.
Social democrats in Canada have long targeted municipal government for the election of progressives. My hometown of London, Ontario, for millennia (maybe it just seemed that way ...) the bastion of Tory Ontario's money and political power, elected an NDP woman mayor in the 70s. (The New Democrat Party is Canada's social democratic party.) Ottawa, the capital of Canada, also had a New Democrat woman mayor in the late 70s and early 80s.
Having progressives in local government, where they can do things that are readily visible to people living in their constituencies and have direct effects on people's lives, is very worthwhile.
It also provides them with a bully pulpit for doing and saying things like the mayor in this report does, about broader issues.
Ottawa's mayor Marion Dewar presided over the city's declaration that it was a nuclear-free zone, and issued a public proclamation of Popular Summit day when we held the first-ever counter-summit to the G7 summit there in the early 80s. Having friends in offices like this can provide exposure and enhance the legitimacy of progressive positions, even if the individuals do not not have immediate and direct influence on policy at higher levels.
It's somewhat trite, but it's also still true that it is easier for women to gain recognition and win elections at the municipal level, and it can also to easier get other women -- and ordinary people in general -- interested and involved in the political process at that level.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0002267Dewar, Marion, née Bell, public-health nurse, feminist <pro-choice Roman Catholic>, politician (b at Montréal 17 Feb 1928). She was first elected Ottawa alderman in 1972, and later became deputy mayor. While defeated as a provincial candidate in Ottawa West in 1977, she was elected mayor of Ottawa from 1978 to 1985. Among the policy areas she emphasized were improved public access to municipal decision-making, low-cost housing and child care. She co-hosted the Women's Constitutional Conference calling for gender equality provisions in the Canadian Charter of Rights. Under her mayoralty, Ottawa was declared a nuclear-free zone and provided homes to some 4000 Southeast Asian refugees.
In 1985 Dewar was elected NDP federal president and urged the party to have more female candidates. In July 1987 she was a successful candidate for the NDP in a federal by-election in Hamilton West but she lost the seat in the 1988 general election. After her defeat she became the executive director of the Canadian Council on Children and Youth from 1989-92 and in 1995 the national chair of Oxfam Canada. Dewar, an appointee by Bob Rae's Ontario NDP government to the regional Police Services Board, was subsequently fired by the Mike Harris Conservative government, but won a court ruling to be re-instated, in spite of the Tory government's appeal. She is currently the vice-chair of the Heart Institute and past-chair of Oxfam Canada.
Someone like that might not have the profile and money and connections to get elected governor or president, but can do a lot of good things from a mayoral office -- which it may be also easier to win when the people with the money and connections are more focused on the higher-stakes electoral races.
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