I've said it before and I'll say it again: Rofo has been far, far luckier than he's deserved with the people "opposing" him, as last night's pathetic excuse for a debate so amptly proves. He should have been relentlessly horse-whipped, but not one of the other candidates had the stomach to take it down to that level. And they're going to have to if he's to be stopped. You can't come out on top over his kind of open and unashamed thug with sweet reason, spouting bureaucrat-ese, or sticking your nose in the air and acting as if you're above such common, low-born vulgarities as, oh, fighting back. (Gasp! What would Miss Manners say?) Schoolyard bully types like the Ford brothers only understand pushback. Seriously, can this really be such a newsflash to the others who were up on that stage last night at this point in the proceedings?
If this is indicative of the events to come - i.e. Slob steam-rolling right along with his usual bluster and lies while the people supposedly standing against him weakly stutter, "M-m-m-maybe I disagree...if it isn't too much of an inconvenience," then he'll likely slime his way right back into City Hall with nary a problem. They have to take the kid gloves off. Yes, it's early yet, and yes, this was the first debate, but Jesus! Every one of us here knew perfectly well what Ford was going to do last night. Why the hell didn't Tory and the others? Did his utterly predicatble bullshit really come as such a surprise?
It’s clear that, when it comes to drugs, drunkenness, gangs, and criminality, all the candidates had been given the
same strategic advice by their managers:
don’t go there. Each candidate was offered this advice independent of, and unbeknownst to, each other.
In other words, no one knew until the debate that the net effect of reading from the same campaign hymnbook was that Ford was going to get through the entire debate without being hauled on the carpet for his massive acts of malfeasance.
All the candidates believed that someone else was going to do it—and then no one did. And I am sure they were as surprised as anybody.
But now that they
do know, there is an opening for someone to differentiate themselves from the others by being the one that goes after him.
The other thing is, however cathartic it might be to see someone get WAY up in Ford’s face about the his lies about crack etc, each candidate needs to make sure that they--and not one of their competitors—are going to reap the benefits of doing it.
It’s not really in Chow’s benefit to be the one to attack Ford hard over his lies and gang connections if all its going to do is drive right-wing moderates to Tory. The reverse is equally true. And there’s nothing in it for Stintz or Solnacki, because no one is going to win BECAUSE they were the hardest on Rob Ford.
Also, we have to deal with the fact that, prior to yesterday, neither Tory nor Chow saw Ford as their main rival. Their assumption has very much been that Toronto is going to have a new mayor on Oct 28. The debate proved that while the race is hardly ‘his to lose’ the image of Ford as a Dead Mayor Walking is very very wrong, and both campaigns will adjust accordingly.