I’ve got a confession.
Although I’ve never actually met Nick Kouvalis and, in all likelihood, oppose almost everything he purports to stand for in terms of governance, I think I just might admire like fear… what’s the word, I’m looking for here?… respect? Hmmm. Grudgingly respect him? OK. He’s a guy I’d like to sit down and have a beer and shoot the shit with. What’s the word for that?
For those just joining in on the conversation, Mr. Kouvalis was the reported architect of Rob Ford’s successful run for mayor in 2010 and his first chief of staff who transformed a joke of a candidate, and a joke of a mayor into a force to be reckoned with. It was during Kouvalis’s tenure as chief of staff that Mayor Ford celebrated his sweetest of victories at council. On the flip side, his take-no-prisoners style also sowed the seeds of discontent and division, making the mayor more enemies than friends among his councillor colleagues and, arguably, helping to stall the forward motion of Mayor Ford’s self-proclaimed ‘mandate’.
In my All Fired Up in the Big Smoke costume, I’ve had a couple occasions to ‘chat’ with Kouvalis over there at what the young kids today are calling The Twitter. One such occurrence on Thursday in fact. He has been nothing but friendly (if feisty), engaging, surprisingly frank or, at least, giving a very solid appearance of frankness and just an all-round worthwhile banterer.
I hopped aboard an ongoing ‘conversation’ he was having, pointing that his use of pugnacious and militaristic terminology in describing his time with the Ford team – ‘we crushed many armies’, ‘going toe to toe with anyone the left can muster’ – might reflect an us-versus-them attitude that has not helped the mayor recently. In a funny reply, Kouvalis asserted that Mayor Ford’s favourability ratings were the same today as they were before the election and he ‘would luv to salt the earth’ come the next election. That would be what you’d call ‘doubling down’ on the belligerent rhetoric, no?
I guess that’s what I admire about the man. His moxie, as our grandfathers might’ve said. Or in the Nick Kouvalis vernacular, his huge fucking stones. He says what he thinks. He believes what he says. He makes no apologies for his cut throat approach to politics.
Now, it might not make for civil discourse in the public sphere. As Sol Chrom points out, it’s an approach that works well on the campaign trail but isn’t nearly as effective once in power, certainly not in a non-parliamentary, more free flowing system that municipal politics works on Toronto. And yes, such bare knuckle brawling will put off a certain segment of the voting public.
“My job is to end Liberal politicians’ careers,” Kouvalis said in an interview. “That’s what I get paid to do. It’s not pretty, it offends some people, but that’s what I get paid to do.”
Yikes!
Do not take your eyes off this guy. We can’t just look away and pretend he’s not there, hoping that there’s no method to what we might see as his madness. When we do, Rob Ford becomes mayor of Toronto.
Does this mean we have to emulate the tactics Mr. Kouvalis uses? No. If you follow along yesterday’s Twitter feed, you’ll see that he believes he is listening to public opinion. I disagree. In my view, Kouvalis molds public opinion. In other words, as Sol Chrom writes, he shapes the narrative. That’s something we need to take heed of.
We can do that without feeling that we’ve stooped down to ‘their’ level or sullied the process. How? In a guest post at All Fired Up in the Big Smoke from a couple years ago, Distant Cousin wrote about the P.R. industry (itself a distant cousin of the work Nick Kouvalis does) and the book, Do The Right Thing by James Hoggan. It contained the three rules Hoggan had for working with his P.R. firm. 1) Do the right thing. 2) Be seen doing the right thing. 3) Don’t get #1 and #2 mixed up.
Play hard. Stick to your guns and your principles. Don’t back down from the fight.