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That’s really just a guess, more to illustrate the point than predict the final results. Anything can happen between now and October in a first-past-the-post contest. But the point is that the left, writhing in out-of-office agony for the last few years, is (I think) too smart to get into divisive splitting of its own vote.

Backed by the unions and other entrenched NDP factions that hold hammerlocks on downtown power bases, the left is united, one single party behind a single cause that will be easy to articulate as an anti-Ford, anti-right-wing coalition, a force for good in a city that needs to beat back the Ford Nation craziness.

The Olivia Chow Mayoral Election Committee is playing right into this scenario. While the left will be running to win, the conservative candidates will be running divide-and-conquer campaigns against their own diverse forces. Instead of taking on the left, the Tory/Stintz/Ford/Soknacki forces will bash one another into losing, minority positions.

It’s already started, with Mr. Ford attacking Mr. Tory, Mr. Soknacki blasting Mr. Ford, Ms. Stintz angling for position against the others. Toronto’s for-hire political operatives, loyal to no one, are jumping aboard the different campaigns, ready to wipe one another out before the full election is even underway.

Centrist Torontonians should know that Toronto is not a naturally conservative town. Post amalgamation, the city has tilted to the left. David Miller won with 57% of the vote in 2006 in a no-contest battle with Jane Pitfield. In 2003, Mr. Miller collected 43% against John Tory, but only because fellow leftist Barbara Hall was too stubborn to get out the race. She took 9% of the votes that would otherwise have gone to Mr. Miller, giving the left a solid majority.