Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has decided to take another crack at running for mayor.
Ford, the godsend to comedians and bloggers everywhere, was pitchforked into the headlines last year after admitting he smoked crack in a “drunken stupor.” It was life imitating the old joke about a guy who runs a stop sign and as the cop pulls him over his friend advises him: “Just tell him you missed the sign because you were drunk!”
Ford also obliterated once and for all the American cliche that Canada and Canadian politics were boring. So now the good news (for the media and comedians) is that he’ll run again and chances are he’ll still provide some news or a great video embed, such as when he accident rammed into a woman at a council meeting as he leaped to go after someone:
Toronto’s larger-than-life mayor, Rob Ford, who was stripped of most of his powers in November after admitting he had smoked crack, launched his bid for re-election Thursday.
“Just filed my paperwork for the 2014 election. Vote on October 27th,” Ford said on Twitter, alongside a picture of himself, brother Councillor Doug Ford and a city official looking over documents.
Ford has been mired in scandal since October, accused of unseemly behavior and sexual harassment during a series of drunken rampages in addition to his admitted crack use.
He denies the most serious charges, and has always insisted he would seek a second term as mayor of Toronto, North America’s fourth largest city and Canada’s commercial and financial hub.
Ford retains the title of mayor but, since a Toronto city council vote on November 18, the bulk of his powers and duties have been transferred to his deputy, Norm Kelly.
He has, however, remained a highly visible presence in the Ontario capital, and in late December was a media fixture as the city was paralyzed by a powerful ice storm.
A blackout hit more than 300,000 Toronto households for several days before Christmas, and Ford made a number of appearances in the poorer neighborhoods where he enjoys his strongest support.Even as controversy dogs him, polls show Ford’s support has dipped only slightly. A week after the crack admission, 42 percent of Toronto potential voters still held a favorable opinion of their mayor.
His support is especially strong among those whom pollsters described as poor, less educated, male, Catholics, those with children and those whose ancestry is other than British.
Even if he is stripped of many of his previous powers, Ford, for his re-election bid, at least, will be a highly serious candidate. He is a political celebrity benefiting on the fact that notoriety can either kill ya, or make ya. In his case, he’s instant media attention. And he is confident:
One-man Toronto wrecking crew/sideshow Rob Ford has filed the necessary paperwork to run once again for mayor. The admitted drunken crack-smoker went full-on Steve Holt! while filling out the forms for the October 27 election, promising reporters, “Ford more years.” Really, how could he lose?
“I’ve got the strongest track record. I’ve been the best mayor that this city’s ever had. My record speaks for itself,” said Ford, who has basically no power anyway. “If you want to get personal, that’s fine. I’m sticking to my record, and talk is cheap. You’re going to see action like you’ve never seen before.”
As New York magazine’s Joe Coscarelli notes in the post quoted above, Ford could still face criminal charges. But you can now imagine Ford winning nonetheless and producing a show “Prisoners of Love” like in The Producers (song is here).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.