The gun just went off for the official start of the Mississauga South Conservative federal nomination campaign and one of the contestants has already pulled up lame.
Don Stephens, the ward 2 Peel District School Board trustee, said today that, "I have decided to step aside at this time." The decision was made for personal reasons, on which he chose not to elaborate.
"No one was pushing me," Stephens explained this afternoon. "But this is not a good time for me to run. To beat Paul Szabo, it is going to take a 100 per cent effort and I just can't devote that amount of time."
That reduces the field to four: lawyer Tom Simpson, international financial consultant Hugh Arrison, credit union manager Raya Shadursky and the guy everyone seems to assume the party wants: latecomer Major Ted Opitz, a reservist with the Royal Canadian Regiment.
Stephens politely declined to handicap the rest of the field, who are all trying to sell memberships like mad for the June 10 meeting.
Opitz would seem to be the wild card. He has good credentials, but the wrong postal code.
Mississauga South stalwarts have always been fussy about having their community represented by native sons or daughters (see Tim Peterson for details.)
Arrison, a personable and steady type, may be the beneficiary of being everyone's second choice in this kind of race. Something like the way Bob Horner came up the middle and knocked off some heavyweights (Ron Starr, Alex Jupp) to win the Mississauga North nomination so many years ago.