When Toronto police Chief Bill Blair confirmed to reporters on Thursday that he had seen the controversial video of Mayor Rob Ford, in which the mayor is alleged to be smoking crack cocaine, many observers thought it marked the unofficial end of Ford's political career.
Yet a number of political strategists and public relations specialists say that the beleaguered, scandal-prone mayor has a good chance of winning a second term in 2014.
"I think he could easily get re-elected," says Nelson Wiseman, a politics professor at the University of Toronto.
"The attitude of a lot of people is that, 'Look, I didn't elect this guy because he doesn't sleep around or he doesn't do crack cocaine. I elected him because I think there's a gravy train at City Hall, and that's what I care about."