Oh, Ford family. You are the Kennedys by way of Homer Simpson.
Good for Rob Ford for making the right decision for his health. As a Torontonian this exit feels awfully anti-climatic - it renders every discussion about the good and bad of Rob Ford for four years irrelevant. During his whole rehab affair people would say, âWhere is your empathyâ to the people who kept hounding him, and I always said it would begin when he was not longer our mayor. Well best of luck to Rob Ford in recovering from his illness.
But Doug Ford entering the race is absurd. Heâs the less likable of the Ford brothers. While Rob Ford was constantly involved in scandals, it was Doug Ford who would go in the media call protestors racists or insult New Orleans for no reason. Fortunately, whatever ineffable quality Rob Ford had that made people want to vote for him, I donât think Doug Ford has it, and even with it Rob probably wasnât going to win.
I just wish Doug Ford was going away sooner rather than later.
The original URL for this article has the word âquietsâ in place of âquitsâ, although the comment section on BBS has it right. Iâm guessing this canât be fixed once itâs published?
Iâm going to feel just awful for suggesting this if Rob Ford passes away in the near future, but I think your headline should have been âBumblefuck OUTâ.
You can almost hear every writer at the Daily Show, Colbert, Conan, Tonight show etc. all say âoh fuck, now i have to work harderâ at the same time.
Whatâs weird is heâs not actually dropping out of campaigning - Rob and Doug have just switched campaigns. Now Doug is running for mayor, Rob is running for ward 2 counsellor.
Itâs probably worse for Toronto. Putting Doug Ford in the Mayorâs race would be like swapping George Bush for Dick Cheney in the Oval Office.
But itâs not that bad. Swapping George Bush and Dick Cheney in the Oval Office is terrible. Swapping them during the campaign might have been great.
And thatâs why you donât fuck with the Bene Gesserit.
Not quite swapping places. Doug Ford wasnât running in Ward 2 even though he was the sitting councilor. Mike Ford was running in Ward 2 (purely on the name recognition of his uncles and grandfather).
I do not understand how this works. In America, a candidate who quit couldnât just appoint their successor, unless it happened before a primary and their party went along. I donât even know how they choose mayors in a parliamentary system, or how they get elected.
I really donât understand at all. Itâs probably not actually legal, but then these are the Fords.
EDIT: Itâs actually perfectly above-board - the registration deadline was today at 2PM. If this had happened a week later, it would have been too late to do anything but withdraw.
Yup, what dragonfrog said. Municipal elections in Canada work pretty much like they do in the USA, except that there are no official political parties at that level, so no primaries.
Rob Ford chose to withdraw, and Doug Ford chose to enter the race less than an hour before the candidate filing deadline. There was no official successorship. They are simply hoping that Rob Fordâs supporters will choose to vote for Doug instead.
What do you think weâre saving it for?
Itâs just that our mayoral races in Toronto are totally insane. As @dragonfrog said, the registration deadline was today at 2pm. In most municipalities the campaigns are probably just getting started at this point. But with the fixed election date everyone knows when the election is coming and in Toronto the campaign basically starts in January despite the fact that we canât even be sure who is running until mid September. Our federal and provincial election campaigns typically last five or six weeks, but mayor of Toronto goes on forever.
Best of luck Toronto.
The scary thing is that Rob Ford was sort of like Doug Fordâs marionette. Rob Ford is pretty easy on the uhâŚthinking end of things, and was just being bossed around by his older brother Doug. Robâs chronic stupid escapades were sort of a smokescreen for the malevolent and criminal intent of Doug. Rob Ford is like the kid that will do anything for approval by his older brother - even when it involved personal humiliation or disgrace. As long as the older kids were paying attention to him - even if that meant laughing AT him - he was fine as long as he got the attention.
Doug Ford seems like a psychopath, in every clinical sense of the word, however.
