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2014 Municipal Election: Toronto Mayoral Race

Rich Underhill cast his hat into the race this morning too. It would be so great if he won! Going from Ford to a Grammy winning, bike-riding, lefty musician as mayor!
 
Am I the only one that feels Doug Ford running Rob Ford's campaign is going to seriously hurt the mayor's chances of re-election? I'm no fan of Rob Ford ( and I plan on giving Karen Stintz my full support ), but I really think Doug Ford is a terrible choice as campaign manager.
 
That Rob Ford is using the campaign slogan "Ford More Years" is a hint of a bungled up campaign to come. People don't want Ford More Years, the last four have been awful. Had Nick Kouvalis been managing his campaign again, I'm confident he would have chosen something to the effect of Promises Made, Promises Kept. It would be mostly a lie but repeated enough people would believe it. It would move away from Ford's terrible personal record and play to the "I don't care about his personal life, he kept his promises" crowd.

Doug is going to get too personally involved, something an impartial and low key campaign manager wouldn't do. He's going to mess this up because there's 10 months to put his foot in his mouth and he can apparently do that every time he's in front of a camera.
 
All Doug Ford will do during this campaign is say the following:

- Rob Ford isn't perfect, he has made mistakes and he has apologized even though he was basically focused to say sorry again and again and not that he meant it
- Rob Ford is in better shape now so that means all his personal problems are vanished (a lie)
- Rob Ford saved a billion dollars (a lie)
- Rob Ford is the main reason the Bloor-Danforth subway line is being extended into Scarborough (a lie)
- Rob Ford has the best attendance out of everyone in council (a lie)
- Rob Ford is the best mayor Toronto has ever had (a lie)
- Rob Ford is loved by the real people of Toronto (that's just confusion)
- The Toronto media is out to destroy Rob Ford (a lie)

All Rob Ford will do is run on empty promises, lies and silly rhetoric, and Doug Ford will be enabling him the whole way. Let this mess begin.
 
Yeah, sounds a lot like a campaign about campaigning rather than a campaign about governing, all 76 Trombones-style flourish, no substance...
 
An even better slogan would be "Nobody is Perfect but Ford is perfect for Toronto". Something like that -- come to think of it, I may have heard that somewhere else. Marion Barry maybe? Ford More Years is an awful slogan because even his supporters couldn't have enjoyed the circus that has gone on.
 
Everyone needs to now know that Ford's gloves will now be fully taken off- it's campaign season and I think that Ford will feel entitled to act in whatever way he can in order to win.


Returning to this overly cautious and perhaps chicken-littlesque article: http://www.specialcircumstances.ca/why-rob-ford-will-win-in-2014

I still find that it has some fairly relevant points:
Ford gets to define the terms of the election, you see, so those will be the terms - his terms.
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This is true especially if Ford's lies are not questioned enough by mainstream media.

With incumbency and a massive media platform, he can say anything he wants and have it broadcast worldwide (although it only needs to be Toronto-wide). He will have a fully-funded campaign, $1.3 million to spend on electioneering, although with 50 camera crews (not an exaggeration) following him around daily, he doesn't even need money for campaigning.
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Remember that 905-ers will be donating as well. And the 905 is much more conservative than the 416. And he can raise the slightest ruckus and media will be all over him again.

(people who will vote for Ford because he's their guy and he'll stick it to the latte-sipping elites) + (people who will vote for Ford because he saved them a billion dollars) + (people who will vote for Ford because they see him on TV every day) = more than enough to win
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Here's what the election will boil down to:

Candidate A: Rock star, says he saved you a billion dollars, you see him on the TV every day and in the newspaper every day, some people dislike him.

Candidate B/C/D/E/F/G: you've never seen her face, never read a story about her, you heard she's supposed to be competent.

When rock stars go up against nobodies, rock stars win every time.
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Ford is actually a brilliant populist, who also happens to be crippled by being a drug and alcohol addict, being a congenital liar, and having a terrible family. Imagine if he didn't have those handicaps! Don't count him out. The best Toronto can hope for is that there's only one serious candidate running against him and that candidate manages to eke out a narrow victory. But if the city is not extremely lucky, we're looking at Ford more years.
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Here's what has to happen for an anti-Ford campaign to be successful:
- Few candidates. The fewer the better. Somehow, as many as possible of the potential mayoral candidates need to be convinced to drop out or not run.
- Celebrity, populist campaigning. This doesn't mean copy Ford's anti-tax message. Don't do that, because it will just come across as fake. It does mean 'become a rock star'. Must have a message that resonates with the public, not boring policy papers.
- Must take Ford on directly. Must call him a liar, to his face, repeatedly. That's what he is, but if no one says it because they're too polite, Ford wins.
- Must stop Ford from sucking up all the oxygen, and the only way to do that is to give the media a show that rivals his.
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I might say that as long as media keeps Ford out of the spotlight, this article might not be as relevant as people begin to forget about his antics and take a closer look at his policies. Moreso, if Kouvalis is actually working for Tory and Doug is running Ford's campaign, the chances will be pushed a bit towards our favour. Money-wise, Ford has in his favour the potential to raise money from corporations skirting election laws (remember that post talking about companies asking their employees to donate and expense their donation) and 905-ers looking to stick one in the "downtown pinkos".

One thing we know for sure- keep on treating this as an uphill slog. It will be.
 
I watched Stintz on LeDrew. Honestly I can't say I see mayoral leadership qualities. I don't see it, I can't see it happening, and if the debates are anything like 2010, Ford will easily shut her down with pig-headed non-sequiturs.
 
jje1000 said:
if Kouvalis is actually working for Tory and Doug is running Ford's campaign, the chances will be pushed a bit towards our favour.
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That's what I keep hearing. Kouvalis was in touch with Tory's "team" around September, it looked like negotiations were taking place. I don't know what has become of it but I think there's a good chance that Kouvalis might manage John Tory's campaign. If so, he'll be able to work to hit Ford's weak spots because he knows them all, he had to keep a lid on Ford during his own campaign.
 
Stintz certainly isn't inspiring. I hope she works on her skills much more, or drops out while she can.
 
StevieD said:
Am I the only one that feels Doug Ford running Rob Ford's campaign is going to seriously hurt the mayor's chances of re-election? I'm no fan of Rob Ford ( and I plan on giving Karen Stintz my full support ), but I really think Doug Ford is a terrible choice as campaign manager.
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So... what's the problem?!

jje1000 said:
One thing we know for sure- keep on treating this as an uphill slog. It will be.
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It will, and I'm sure books will be written about it when it's all said and done.
I'm still of the absolute belief, as I have previously stated, that the recording is in the wild. Blair "knew" of the recording well before his presser on the "recovery" of same (from a solid source, again, as previously stated early last summer) and from another high placed source (a long, long time friend who is in the position to know) I was told that it has made the rounds in high legal circles, though my friend has never seen it - only heard the whispered rumours. Could it be floating around elsewhere? Perhaps but probably unlikely, I think if it was we would have seen it by now. It takes some sound (but not advanced) knowledge to clean-code the file and upload it at a public WiFi spot through a disposable smart device onto torrents. The possibility of a well-timed release of the recording later this year - legitimate or not, would play a massive roll in the outcome of this election. So, fingers crossed.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
She won't make it to October. The working theory seems to be that she's been planning to drop out since the beginning.
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Exactly. I know for a fact that she was working with Olivia Chow's team and actually helping them assemble parts of Chow's campaign. I'm a strong believer that there's some sort of agreement. I think that Stintz will drop out before September and run for her council seat.

I believe that a healthy field of candidates will strengthen the perception that there is choice and that Ford isn't anywhere near the best out of the bunch of Conservatives, Liberals and Centrists that will be running. Incumbent races usually feature one or two challengers and the incumbent often gets a walk in the park towards re-election. This next election looks like a race without an incumbent. Choice is an effective anti-blind-followers pill.

If both Tory and Olivia run I think that they'll be left standing near the end with Ford in third place. If it goes that way, I can see all three remaining until election day but both Olivia and Tory are cordial enough to step out if one of them is a distant third.

I'm a little nervous about vote splitting but I'm also excited to finally see Ford torn apart by much better prepared campaign teams. This is going to be fun to watch.
 
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