Today is a day we’ve waited for forever, or maybe it just seems like forever. I’ve almost forgotten I have a say in making it happen, instead of one long whine from the parade sidelines.

We get to put a giant skewer to the cult of personality ( she says hopefully).

When I worked in television, we used to joke that putting people in front of a camera zapped their humility. Except we weren’t kidding. Suddenly, a reasonable individual became a personality and the team behind her mere minions. Television and radio shows are nothing if not awesome team players.

Smart hosts figure that out and pay tribute to their teams on air, either at the end of a broadcast, or a week of work. It may or may not come as a surprise to anyone but show hosts don’t always write their own copy, form their own questions, or have anything other than marginal influence over a show lineup. The good ones do, and their intelligence shines through the airwaves. They see themselves only as conduits of information, between the hub of writers and producers, hustling up content, and the audience. Too frequently however, the considerable responsibility of the job is conflated with ego -the powder puff applying more than makeup.

Good mayors work like that too. They may ( and should be) the smartest cat in the room but they’ll reach across the table to bring everyone along in a shared vision. They don’t overwhelm the room with the stench of their own ambition.

I don’t know what happened to CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi. I can read between the lines and dream up conclusions but without facts, it means nothing.  I smell a hot mess. The shit pile is there, but who made it and contributed to it isn’t clear. It would be a dark day indeed if a certain large corporation knew about nasty secrets and did nothing. Dark is a colour I’ve seen before.

Whatever the host’s strengths, the show Q is only as good as the team that did the copious amounts of research, called to book the guests, set the schedule, prepared a line of questioning, brought coffee to the green room to sooth a nervous interview subject. All of them made Ghomeshi look good, smart, hip.

I know.

I used to be one of them, on another show that kicked around ideas about news and entertainment.

Call me biased-I’m a middle child after all-my whole life’s been a team.

Remember, there are dozens of people who work hard to bring you Q. They, individually and collectively, share in the success of this show. They are a big part of Q’s intellect and heart. They’re still here and committed to bringing you the best show they can.

Guest host Brent Banbury, this morning on Q.

I do know what happened to Rob Ford. I wish I didn’t. I wish I could wave a sassy wand and make the last four years go away. It robbed me, and certainly countless others, of faith in systems. I learned a whole new vocabulary of spin and it sucked. Smart and sensible were bad words and I didn’t speak the new language.

I forgot about the team. There was always a team. City works are a result of hundreds of worker bees.

Today, when I mark my X in the box for John Tory, I’m thinking of the team he will join. I’m confident his reach is broad enough to bring them together. His personality?  I’m looking instead at his approach, his work ethic, his record in countless sectors, private and public.

I listened to Q this morning too, as I’ve done many times since it first aired. I love that it’s there, that a conversation about the arts and culture in this country still exists. Maybe the CBC will get smart. Maybe they’ll throw up a big poster of the whole team behind the show, instead of a new model.

Dream on, Anne.

Riding my little train of hope on over to the ballot box…see you there.