How Fake Is My Mayoral Candidate?

From here:

Apparently, Tory shifted all his radio show followers to his mayoral run feed, so this might have something to do with his high fake score.  Still, the page offered to sell me software to remove all his fake followers. Here's Karen Stintz for comparison:

Ran out of free searches before I got to anyone else.

Dieter Doneit-Henderson Speaks Out

He's one of the guys caught up in the Rob Ford twitter-account scandal:

It's now plain for all to see, that this was contrived and planned to the smallest of detail and that is sickening. To think that these people are now running the city, based on those kind of tactics, and to what level they did deceive and manipulate, can only be symbolic of the corruption and bent ethics we can look forward to.

And a bit more here.

Rob Ford Piece In The Mark

Here it is.

Dunno why, but you see a post in a Grade-A venue like The Mark and it makes you think This... Shit...Is...SERIOUS!

Way more serious than the same words on a mere blog.

Rob Ford: His Deeper Meaning

It took me and the wife almost 45 minutes to vote on Monday, standing in line-ups and filling out forms, because my poor darling had been tossed off the voters list again--who knows why?

And 30 seconds after we got in the door back home the Toronto Mayoral race had been called. The result didn't surprise me, though Ford thumped Smitherman more thoroughly than I had predicted.

I, of course, voted for the loser. But I know a few Rob Ford supporters. You might even say I've been doing research on them over the past ten months of municipal campaigning. Or you might just say that I've been drinking beer with them. In either case, I've made note of my results, and here they are.

Firstly, the political ignorance of Rob Ford supporters has been vastly overestimated. Or at least Jim--I will call him--who is a retired inlaw of mine, knows far, far more about what goes on in the city than (for example) I do. Every time a condo is slated to go up within a mile of him, he protests: calls his councillor, phones his MPP, and attends all the meetings with the developers. And his councillor knows Jim, too, and apparently seeks to avoid him sometimes by sneaking out of his office through the back door. That's how engaged Jim is in city politics.

And his opinion is that city politics is corrupt, and Rob Ford is the guy to clean it up.

What Jim doesn't know nor care much about is the actual mechanics of city politics: about the weak mayor system, about how the mayor has only one vote and can't really do anything if he can't put together a working coalition of councillors. And so, I'd say to him, don't you want a guy like Smitherman whose been there at the provincial level, has actually handled billions of dollars and shown that he knows how to do the necessary coalition building?

Then Jim would mention the bungle at E-Health , and that line of argument would stall out.

Nope. Rob Ford is his guy, the metaphoric grease bomb Jim wants to set alight and lob over the ramparts of city hall, working under the assumption that fire will make things right and, in any case, how can they get any worse? Send in the clown, to vary the metaphor, because they're already here.

Which I find a fairly compelling argument.

Sammy is a bit of a different story. He's a big (over six foot) Sri Lanken that runs a bar I frequent. In fact, I think Sammy lives in his bar; I'm pretty sure I've never seen him under natural light. And he recognizes a bit of himself in Rob Ford: a small businessman who works hard and follows every penny, and for the money he sends to the city gets nothing but endless construction outside of the entrance to his establishment

As for Rob Ford's unfortunate ventures into political incorrectness and racial stereotyping, they don't seem to bother Sammy. His place is in what you would probably describe as a lower-middle/working class neighborhood, and gets quite an ethnic mix. I've heard Sammy tell the ranter at the end of the bar to shut the hell up because he was making people crazy; I've heard Sammy tell a mostly black softball team that they should come by on Sundays rather than Saturdays for their after-game parties, because they'd frighten the old white guys that inhabit the place on Saturday afternoons. In other words, his approach to Toronto's ethnic bouillabaisse is, like Ford's, indelicate.

How am I supposed to tell him that he should find Rob Ford offensive?

So there you have it. Two specific instances of the Rob Ford phenomenon, and both rational men too. They're the people behind his victory, not the anonymous knuckle-draggers you keep hearing about.

Rob Ford Speaks On Tamil Radio Ads

h/t

Interesting Timing On This

An anti-Rob Ford sign was found along Allen Rd., while others reading “Muslims should not vote for a man who is married to a man” popped up along Danforth Ave. near Victoria Park.

...especially given those Tamil radio ads. Still no idea who's behind those, although this guy ( A Ford supporter) says a "church group" has been shown to be behind the ad. haven't heard anything about that.

All this reminds me of 1996, when Lastman supporters were telling people that Barb Hall was going to bring the Gay Pride parade to North York. One reason I stay out of muni. level politics, where being an activist means getting drunk and kicking over lawn signs.

PS. One of the church groups thought to be behind the anti-gay pro-Rob Ford ads says it ain't them.

Concerning The Pro Rob Ford, Anti-Gay Radio Ad

...that has popped up on CTBC (the Canadian Tamil Broadcasting Corporation). Its difficult to imagine that the Ford campaign would be stupid enough to have put it together. However, Vijay writes that the local Tamil community plans to raise heck, so perhaps we shall get an explanation soon enough. Probably the most important question is why the CTBC would run such an ad in the first place.

PS. A direct link to the ad is here. It isn't in English, but a translation is provided in the accompanying text:

1st Person: Mani Anna, Who you voting for in the Mayoral Election?

2nd Person: [Laughs] What kind of question is this? I am Tamil. We have a religion and culture. Take Rob Ford for an example, His wife is a women. Thats not only it, he said will reduce Land transfer taxes and other taxes.

1st Person: What about Immigration?

2nd Person: [Laughs] Thats a federal government issue. So, the white people can get our vote.

1st Person: I am also going to vote for Rob Ford.

DISCLAIMER: This is a paid Advertisement

Actually, Ford has said he will eliminate the LTT, but whatever.

PPS. Much of this appeared to break last evening around midnight. Here is a Ford campaign pollster expressing disappointment in the ad. It also looks like the CTBC has stopped running the ad.

Time To Go Sleep With The Fishes, Rocco, Cuz You Iz History

The Ipsos Reid poll conducted for NewsTalk 1010 shows that George Smitherman has the support of 31 per cent of respondents while rival Rob Ford has 30 per cent support. Joe Pantalone garnered 11 per cent and Rocco Rossi trailed at four per cent.

This candicacy no longer serves the city of Toronto.

Next time, run for council, Rocco. Get your hands dirty a bit first.

Rossi On Chen

Rocco Rossi shows his support for shop-owner David Chen and spills a bit of policy all in a single press release:

David Chen is not a criminal. He is a small-business owner and an ordinary Torontonian. He attempted to assist the police in the capture of an actual criminal who had already stolen from him and returned to do so again. Mr. Chen did what any of us would have done.

[...]

...Through my sweeping external audit of all City departments and agencies we will find the way and means to get more police on our streets. Re-building the trust between City Hall and the people of Toronto starts by restoring a sense of safety and security in our communities and that's going to take a greater police presence on our streets.

If you've read about David Chen--a Toronto shopkeep charged for arresting a shop-lifter who stole plants from his store and returned for a 2nd batch--he's an easy guy to support. And Rossi ties this into his own version of a "Law And Order" policy. Clever, that. Betcha we get similar statements out of Ford and Smitherman within 24 hours.

Smitherman Kicks Ass

My wife had the radio playing last night while I read in the bath, so I listened to most of the T.O. mayoral debate. And I have to say that furious George came off looking pretty good. Pantalone tried to zing him with the E-Health scandal, and Smitherman turned it into an advert to the "11 Billion" (I think that's the number) he had helped bring to Toronto as a Minister in the McGuinty gov. In contrast, Ford came off looking small-time, with his talk about the kids at Jane/Finch being athletes like him, and how he coached football, and something about gangs, and etc. etc. Rocco Rossi's answers were erudite, but I came to the part in my book about the Glyptodon skulls found in association with men and kept losing the thread of his response. In any case, he seems a bit virginal, politically, and I wonder if he shouldn't have run for a council seat first and got a taste of city politics before aiming at the big job. Whereas George projects as a big gay he-male.

Conspicuous By Their Absence...

More municipal stuff: Rocco Rossi's "goodfellas" ads seem to have disappeared from his website: job done, or mis-step? I didn't like 'em, but they got him onto the front page.

Nicholls Makes No Sense

Gerry Nicholls writes of the newspaper coverage of the T.O. mayor's race:

Writes the [Toronto] Sun: “Either Rob Ford or George Smitherman, it appears, will be our next mayor and neither has a fiscal plan worth warm spit.”

And I guess, if an election was akin to some sort of academic exercise the Sun would be right.

However, elections are about politics. And in politics the last thing you want to do is talk about details.

The more details you divulge the more likely you are to drive away potential voters.

Well, Nicholls knows more about politics than I do, but I think he's wrong. Higher up the political food chain--federally and provincially--there is certainly a greater tendency towards vague platitudes, whether you think this is a healthy thing or not. But the municipal level is where the rubber hits the road; if you have a transit plan, then its pretty easy to find out if the numbers add up or not. There are no lower levels of government on which to dump the monetary burden, and fewer thimbles to hide the pea underneath.

One problem, though, is just as The Sun notes: the fiscal plans of all the major T.O. candidates are obviously inadequate. And you can expand this observation to their transit plans as well. Rocco Rossi--who I am still inclined towards--says he will bury the Allen Expressway. Yeah. Sure he will...if a gazillion $s land in his lap. Rob Ford says he'll close the TTC subway loop. Sure he will...if a gazillion $s land in his lap. The only candidate making sense is Joe Pantalone, who's basically holding to the transit city/metrolinx deal already negotiated with the province. And, for me, he's not really a voting option: at this point, the city doesn't need more Miller-lite (or, perhaps, Miller-short). So, there's a dilemma. I can't argue against a Rob Ford candidacy by appealing to the policy platforms of the other contenders; they're all crap.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't trade what has been a fairly high level of media engagement and analysis during this race for the depressing slop currently on offer at the federal level. I'd even go so far as to commend The Sun for the fact while, they are clearly in Ford's corner, they haven't been afraid to rake him over the coals once or twice.

Who Paid For It?

This poll, that puts Toronto Mayoral candidate Rob Ford way ahead of the competition? Pollstra, the company that did the work, operates out of the second floor of a Hamilton strip plaza that also houses a UPS store and a no frills; they're pretty obscure in other words, although past clients include Gerard Kennedy and Frank Valeriote (actually, these were clients of their "sister company", Prime Contact, which shares a phone number and office).

Some speculation Smitherman might have commissioned it, to scare a few center/leftish votes his way. He sure won't win 'em with charm. Even his friends don't like him.

Quicky Update: More on Prime Contact here: essentially, it's a company that sells campaign services.

And another: Whoopsie! Global story now says Hamilton address is just for a post office box.

Hamlet On The Don

Frankly, John Tory's act has worn thin. Another bout of reconsidering will be met with derisive laughter. So its over for him and, alas, I am stuck trying to choose between two bald guys

The OTHER Toronto Mayor's Poll

You may have read, and possibly been appalled, by this poll from NANOS. This one, on the other hand, which also came out today, hasn't received nearly as much media attention (who the heck is Forum Research?), but it seems less obviously an indication of the coming of the end-times:

Smitherman - 29%
Ford - 26%
Thompson - 14%
Pantalone - 12%
Rossi - 10%
Mammoliti - 4%
Someone else - 2%

And the most interesting bit--look what happens when you put John Tory's name into play:

Tory - 38%
Smitherman - 19%
Thompson - 14%
Ford - 13%
Pantalone - 10%
Rossi - 4%
Mammoliti - 2%


One can still dream, I suppose.

The problem with Ford is less the ideological bluster than personality. Not even the right wing of council particularly likes him, and City staff think he's an ogre. If he gets in look forward to another garbage strike, gridlock on council, and much bellowing about how "The Left" won't let him get stuff done.

Toronto Mayor's Race

...latest poll from Environics, which I have not seen reported upon elsewhere:

Bad news for Rocco Rossi. People I know who've met him always come away impressed, but he's got to raise his profile somehow. And those commercials on the Q just aren't doing it.

For news on T.O. mayor and council races, this place looks like the gold standard.