Politics to me is about building support, forgoing short term gain for long term benefit, putting yourself in a position to understand other points of view. You don't need a business degree or experience in business to know that balancing the books is important. ...Politics is (or should be) about a common goal. Government was supposed to be "we the people", a cross-section of the people they represent. It's never that now.
No, sadly, it's not. For whatever reason, we have reached a point where partisanship IS the goal, rather than a means to reach said goal. It's apparent at all levels of governance. And it's no stranger to the world of business either. Often, in business, it's the deftest politicians who rise, where the smartest and kindest might lose. Swimming with sharks and all.
In politics, this, IMO, can be largely credited to the professionalization and industrialization of what might once have been a craft or calling. Hell, professionalization is why the Manning Centre exists.
Rob Ford, if anything, is a professional politician. Like Jason Kenney, Tony Clement, John Baird, Rob Anders and Stephen Harper on the right ,for example. Jack Layton on the left. Maybe Mulcair as well. As far as Liberals, McGuinty was also a pro. None of these people have done F' All outside of politics. Some have law degrees, but they haven't practiced. No 'side' is immune. But it seems the Right attracts these tactical pro political weasels more so.
All - the Fords unseemly so - seem to live for the game: political wins or, when losing, spinning defeat into a vast victimology. Either way, those who have enabled them along the way expect their quid pro quo. A Jimmy Stewart type who is unexpectedly elevated to office and naively expects to kick a dent in this universe is soon hopelessly disillusioned or irreparably subsumed. Any 'amateur' who enters this arena should well expect to be a) ignored or b) chewed up and expectorated. Not saying this is good, just is what it is.