I will admit, Ford does remind me of Farley in Tommy Boy (Farley in anything, really) – a jovial, well-meaning dimwit who seems blissfully unaware of how offensive he can be.  Not that I think anyone should follow dumb rules, but the former city councillor regularly broke council rules that seem kind of smart. He’s preoccupied with issues (such as councillor expense accounts) that play well with voters, even if those issues won’t improve the quality of their lives.   Ford’s subtle, nuanced policy on Toronto’s homeless? Get a job, you bum!  His policy on AIDS: don’t be gay, or an addict.

It would be cheap to publish Tommy Boy's Arrest photo for DUI and pot possession. Here it is.

A voter in the 2000 US presidential election once said she was voting for George W. Bush because he was just like her, that  she felt like she could have a beer with him.  At the time, I recall thinking “do you really want to give nuclear launch codes to a guy just because you think he’d be a fun drunk?”   I suppose the same thought could apply to Ford, although chances are if you drank with him, he’d get you in a fight, or possibly busted for weed.

Now that he’s in office, I believe Ford’s haters need to give his mayorality a sense of proportion, as a Better Man would.  You see, Rob Ford may be bad for Toronto, but he’s good for democracy.  All bad leaders are.  Good leaders can inspire devotion, loyalty…even love.  But just like Chow and Vaughan, they can also inspire boredom, and complacency.  It’s hard to fight the system when the system runs well, and when your leader leaves you with the feeling that things are going to be okay, you tend to ignore how your country/province/state/city is run.   You think to yourself “well, no matter what happens, this governing shit is handled” and you forget about it. You become apathetic and disengaged.

A bad leader, on the other hand, gets everybody’s attention – just look at Bush.  Even Fergie from Black Eyed Peas had an opinion on that guy, he was that bad.  A great leader could never inspire people that much.

We say we want good government, and part of us genuinely does.  But what voters need is something to be mad about, and I believe Mayor Tommy Boy will give them exactly that.   His well-oiled campaign successfully exploited voter anger, but his overreaching policies were mostly shaped in a vacuum. The reality for Ford is that with the exception of repealing an unpopular tax or two, it is largely impossible for him to make good on all the promises in his agenda. He’s just one vote on a council that (despite a shift to the right) largely disagrees with him on a most issues, such as outsourcing garbage collection, or public funding for things like the Gay Pride parade.  His plans for transit  involve breaking existing contracts (which would cost millions) and persuading provincial politicians (who don’t necessarily like him) to give Toronto billions for a replacement idea.  As for his “scandalous” comments – well, let’s hope he says something that gets him on the Daily Show – that would be awesome.   And the public drunkeness, or pot possession?  I can’t speak for everyone, but personally it would be hypocritical for me to get incensed over any misdeeds that I could reasonably be accused of committing – it’s why I could never take Clinton’s impeachment seriously.   In the context of Ford’s life, the real scandal isn’t that he was kicked out of a Maple Leafs game for getting in a dustup, or was caught down in Florida driving drunk with pot – it’s that he decided he still wanted to run for mayor afterwards.

Yes, Tommy Boy is a bit of a buffoon, one who has the ability to adversely affect the lives of millions of people.  But sooner or later, those people (even and especially the ones who voted for him) will get mad. They’ll start talking to each other, they’ll organize rallies, and when the next election comes they’ll show up at the polls in droves to vote in someone who knows what they’re doing – or at least someone who isn’t Rob Ford.  Sure, they’ll be frustrated, but they also be engaged, and an engaged citizenry can make real things happen.  I think Torontonians know this on some subconscious level – how else can you explain the mystery of Mel Lastman?

Today, I live in a neighbourhood that has more young married couples with children under six than any other neighbourhood in North America.  It is perhaps the WORST place for a single childless male like myself in which to live, and when my neighbours see me in the local restaurants I believe they want me to eat at a separate lunch counter.  But thanks to Rob Ford, I will soon have something in common with my neighbours – we won’t want him to run our city.  A euphoric sense of community will pass over us as we set aside our differences and march to the polls, arm in arm, to vote him out of office.  It will be a beautiful day.  About the only way it gets screwed up is if Tommy Boy turns out to be a good mayor.

Pages: 1 2