Silly Little Country

Jonathan Kay on Rob Ford

I am pretty sure I WILL vote for him, perhaps unlike Kay, but I do think Kay's column is interesting.
This year's Toronto is not the rather sickeningly sweet place it has been for so long, the Toronto I tend to connect with the Annex, full of the 'creative class' and CBCers, and others who suck off government grants.

For weeks now, the Toronto media has whipped itself into a frenzy about what sort of international laughingstock Toronto would become if this “buffoon” (Google that word alongside “Rob Ford” and you get almost 2,000 hits) were to become mayor. But no one cares. They don’t even care about the YouTube videos showing him freaking out, or those sophmoric Facebook groups with names like “Can this croissant get more fans that Councillor Rob Ford?” All they seem to care about is their visceral conviction that Toronto has been wrecked by the sort of big-spending, union-coddling lefties whom Ford rails against.

I am really enjoying reading poll reports now; I have to confess to idiotically voting once (ONLY once, and only the first time) for the liar David Miller, who committed to city tax increases staying below inflation, and then running a regime that never once achieved that goal in years.
During those many years Rob Ford has been a bullish mulish force making fun of Miller's crew, and has never been taken seriously by the media.
Now they have a problem. It seems we like him! And I hope it is true.
I have never missed an election and I sure won't this one. (Pace Bryan Caplan (if you do not read his blog you sure should!).)
I am finally, after almost 25 years here, starting to admire Toronto. And Kay gets a key point here:

Suburbanites are from Mars, urbanites are from Venus. Whatever their differences over cars versus public transit, the pro-Ford phenomenon spans the entire GTA — something I didn’t properly understand till I attended a Yom Kippur fast-breaking party on Saturday, in the elitist enclave of Forest Hill, a place I expected Ford to be a figure of mockery. “I’ll be voting for him,” said my cousin Danny. “I don’t care how polished he is. He knows what’s right.”

Danny is right and it is substantially Ford's utter lack of polish that make us want to vote for him. This is a guy who faced charges in Florida and nobody seems to care! (Miller and his like were likely doing their stuff at Harvard too.)
I am the ultimate urbanite. As I said, I am quite sure Ford has my vote. I loathe the administration that went around the world to environmental conferences (Miller's best moments I am sure).
Ebenezers of the world unite! You have nothing to losee but your junket-enjoying mayor!

posted by Alan Adamson @ 5:59 PM