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Admiral Beez said:
On my three vehicles I saved $180. I don't use public transit, nor have I much use for anything at City Hall besides infrastructure, utilities and emergency services. There are lots of people like this to whom the VRT cancellation was welcomed.
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How much extra do you pay in maintenance and premature tire wear due to poorly maintained infrastructure.
 
pattycakes said:
David Soknacki is running as a right-leaning candidate. He was budget chief under Miller, so while Ford will jump all over that, it shows that Soknacki works well with others (something that Ford needed to learn in kindergarten).

"Seven years after leaving city hall, former councillor and budget chief David Soknacki is giving “serious consideration” to running for mayor of Toronto.
The Scarborough fiscal conservative and genial owner of a successful spice business is already at odds with Mayor Rob Ford on a key issue — he strongly believes light rail, not a subway, makes the most sense as a replacement for the aging Scarborough RT.
“For an extension to Kennedy (station), LRT produces results faster, for more people, at less expense, and is paid for” by provincial dollars that don’t come close to covering the cost of a subway, Soknacki said.
“To trade that for something reliant on (financial) fairy dust is not the way we ought to go.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...lor_david_soknacki_ponders_run_for_mayor.html
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But as the article stated,

Reason 1- Incumbent Advantage, Airtime and Getting the Message Across
Contrast with the 2010 election: George Smitherman managed to get 36% of the public to vote for him, after a lengthy campaign. Ford has almost that much in the bag before the campaign starts.

[...]

The advantage of being able to say anything you want and have it broadcast on every nightly newscast is incalculably large. Olivia Chow will be paying a fortune to make a few 30-second TV spots, to get a few short blurbs broadcast to the public about her. Ford just walks into a room and starts talking and all the cameras focus on him, and his statement, however long it is, runs live and gets repeated that evening. For free.

Ford is sucking up all the oxygen. If Olivia Chow releases a perfectly sane and competent 900-page policy paper about all the great things she'll do for Toronto, and on the same day Rob Ford says something (anything), you know how much media coverage she'll get? None. Zero.

[...]

And people vote for celebrities.
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http://www.specialcircumstances.ca/why-rob-ford-will-win-in-2014

Reason 2- Name Recognition

MILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLERMILLER etc.

That's what most people will hear about him. MILLER = Baggage. No matter whether you like him or not, stay away from associating with him.

I doubt Soknacki will make it to the election before dropping out. Stintz may, if she plays her cards right and gets a whole lot of airtime soon (aka more than Adam Vaughan)
 
As a daily driver out of work necessity (construction), I found the cost of the VRT to be laughable.
As a transit user, I find the annual cost of a metro pass anything but laughable.
 
Admiral Beez said:
On my three vehicles I saved $180. I don't use public transit, nor have I much use for anything at City Hall besides infrastructure, utilities and emergency services. There are lots of people like this to whom the VRT cancellation was welcomed.
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Oh, so hardly anything except police, fire, roads, sidewalks, grass....just like those small, useless things the city provides? Just, you know, "infrastructure"?
And it doesn't matter if YOU use transit. If other people couldn't use transit YOU wouldn't be able to take your car anywhere, between the traffic and homeless people clogging up the street.I guess you also transport and process your own recycling and garbage too? Plow the road out in front of your house when it snows?

Jeeze, really. Sometimes I wonder how Ford got elected and sometimes I hear people babble insanely and it all becomes clear.
 
Rob Ford, Senate scandals spawn rebirth of Frank Magazine

With trademark digs at politicians and journalists, Ottawa’s Frank Magazine was revived Monday after a five-year hiatus.

Frank’s website went live Monday afternoon for paid subscribers, who will be sent free Rob Ford “bobble bellies“ for signing up.
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fordbobble.jpg


http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/F...awn+rebirth+Frank+Magazine/9210009/story.html
 

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While reporting that story about Renata two years ago, I learned something that never made it into the final version, even though it was on the record from a sitting member of Parliament, confirmed by the fact checker and approved by the magazine’s lawyers.

Ford had just been elected and my editors were understandably cautious. But in light of the mayor’s recent confessions to smoking crack during a “drunken stupor,” not to mention his lewd comments about his wife, it’s time to reveal what I learned.

Based on a tip, I phoned Borys Wrzesnewskj, then MP for Etobicoke-Centre. He told me he’d been campaigning door-to-door during the 2006 federal election. At a house on Edenbridge Drive, Renata answered the door. They chatted in Polish, but he had no idea who she was until Rob Ford appeared.

I asked if he had seen any bruises on Renata. A silence ensued, so long that I thought Wrzesnewskj had hung up on me.

“It was evening,” he eventually said.

I asked again. Long pause.

“You know it’s really hard to tell what sort of condition people are in.”

I asked again. Long pause.

“You see many things when you knock on doors. You’re never quite sure.”
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http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1169969-wong-my-addition-to-the-story-of-rob-ford
 
evvabeing said:
Olivia Chow Would Defeat Rob Ford In Toronto Mayoral Election: Poll

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/11/25/olivia-chow-rob-ford-poll_n_4338354.html?ir=Canada+Politics
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TheTigerMaster said:
Please please please don't take that for granted. Please. I don't care how probable it is that Chow will win. We can't underestimate the power of Ford's dirty campaigning and slogans.
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And remember this from the article:

Recent polling (and this is shortly after he's been stripped of most mayoral powers, if you're reading this later on after he's done still more crazy things) has Ford at 42% approval, with 33% of the public wanting to vote for him today. This is pretty much Ford's lowest polling results, ever. It's rock-bottom for him. And still, 33% of the public actively wants to vote for him and another 9% approves of the job he's doing and obviously would be open to voting for him if he got his act together a little bit. What these polls mean is that IF the election were held today (it isn't) and IF Ford was facing only 1 or 2 opponents (he won't be), THEN Ford would be in trouble. But... so what? The election isn't today and Ford won't be facing just one or two opponents.

Contrast with the 2010 election: George Smitherman managed to get 36% of the public to vote for him, after a lengthy campaign. Ford has almost that much in the bag before the campaign starts.

Ford has very nearly enough votes to win today, and his numbers can only go up from here. 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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http://www.specialcircumstances.ca/why-rob-ford-will-win-in-2014

Getting rid of Ford will require more than just sitting back and hoping for the best.
 
I think Black has a soft spot for Ford because they're both old money and they've both been in trouble with the police.
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I can assure you that His Lordship has no soft spot for Ford. Even without a hint of a scandal, Black wouldn't let any member of the Ford family shine his shoes. He was careful to not really say much about Ford himself, but his wife let it slip in her recent Macleans article on the subject....

However, there is a level of politesse that a public person must exhibit. Ford’s intoxicated persona is boorish and unsuitable for office, so goodbye.
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He is simply using Ford. His motive could be nothing more than an excuse to malign the Star. But it sounds like he is also trying to use the situation to continue to rebuild his own image using it as an example of wrongful persecution.

Ford and Black are not members of the same club (unless it's the malignant narcissist club). Black may not even qualify as "old money"...the Fords....don't make me laugh. Black is why guys like Peter C Newman write books on the subject. Ford is briefly the butt of jokes on late night monologues.


There are lots of people like this to whom the VRT cancellation was welcomed.
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Just to be clear, not only was the VRT a wise use of the new City of Toronto Act, and cancelling it was counter productive....Ford's campaign promise didn't actually say he would cancel the VRT.
 
AlbertHWagstaff said:
It would be helpful if some others stood and up debunked it and then flung it all back so that Ford doesn't get the only soundbites. The media love his bluster and outrage, but there needs to be someone strong counteracting it, or this will go on week after week.
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Or the media can just stop airing or publishing his comments.
 
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