Mayor Rob Ford's re-election campaign is moving forward, one selfie at a time
http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-...ction-campaign-moving-forward-one-selfie-time
"Torontonians relate to him because he’s real, and he’s honest — or if he’s not honest, he’s real about it.
It’s a deceptively clever tactic, according to Myer Siemiatycki, a politics professor at Ryerson University.
“This is re-writing the rule book as to how you run an election campaign. He does not tell the media about his whereabouts, not wanting to be within their reach and scrutiny. Instead, he wants to present himself as this massively popular, attractive political public figure who the people of Toronto just can’t get enough of,†he says.
Siemiatycki suspects Ford is hoping the multiplying effect of social media will work in his favour. People tweet photos of themselves with the mayor, and the pics go viral. They show the mayor smiling with regular people, happy to be seen with him. It’s free, uncritical publicity.
“It’s almost ingenious. It’s an attempt to very much control how he is perceived and what image of himself is portrayed,†he adds.