[spider]

All of the above are fools, and there is a cost that the city must pay for having so many fools

Why did the non-fools vote for their choices?

 

[freshcutgrass]

I think most people voted for Ford because he told them they were being ripped off, which people love to hear.

This is the main reason. This is the fantasy at the heart of the conservative-thinking mind....that there are people who get up in the morning with the sole intent of taking their money away from them, and distributing it to people/things they don't approve of.

We can only hope that this collective mood of populist thinking amongst the electorate was just a temporary blip. But Toronto has been fooled into thinking we were far more "liberal" city in our mentality, but I have a feeling that has been eroded over the decades. More than half the city are immigrants, and these immigrants tend to be conservative-thinking.

This is not the Toronto of the 60's & 70's & 80's, where we shrugged off our victorian roots with vigour. The right kind of leadership and public figures are gone...Jane Jacobs, Marshall McLuhan, Moses Zneimer...Roshdale. Toronto used to be a city of diverse influential thinkers and subversives....and the ret of us went along for the ride.

Now...we are a city of boring zombies. How else could you explain how such a large percentage of the city actually elected something like a Rob Ford? As someone already pointed out...the fact that he was a complete jackass was evident to anyone paying even a tiny bit of attention.

 

[Ak2809]

I'm just curious what was it that made you think he was responsible with taxpayer money? Because all I saw was a buffoon who had no clue what he was doing.

He did have a good record being decent with money, and spending his office budget wisely. However, what alternative was there? Smitherman came with just as much baggage and Joe Pantalone did had little chance.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Normally intelligent people voted for him knowing he was a jackass, that's the sad thing. A sort of bloody-minded madness took over.

 

[MetroMan]

David Miller finally takes a shot at Rob Ford:

The guy who should be fired is the one who said the private sector would build the Sheppard subway at no cost to the City. -- David Miller

Miller has mostly kept out of Ford's destruction of his work except for some rare indirect comments about his policies, not Ford himself.

A lot of people are taking shots at Ford on Twitter today but this particular tweet was very satisfying coming from David Miller.

 

[Silence&Motion]

Ford got elected because his populist, anti-tax message arrived at just the right moment to capture the attention of the electorate and win over many non-politically engaged people and even some populist leftists.

Back in 2010, I was talking with a lower-class middle-aged woman living in the old city of Toronto, who considers herself to be a poverty activist. She said she was going to vote for Ford because she was disgusted at what she perceived to be the rich ripping off the public. She cited specifically AGO director Matthew Teitelbaum's million dollar salary in 2009 as evidence. I'm not sure if she realized that this money didn't come from the city, but she blamed both Miller and the provincial Liberals for creating an atmosphere in which cultural elites were giving themselves big paydays, and spending money on opera houses and art galleries instead of investing the money in social programs. So, she plugged her nose and voted for Ford in order to send a message.

I also spoke with many, many people who are not usually politically engaged, but who decided to vote for Ford because they were angry about the HST and decided that this was the best way to express that anger. Again, some of them realized that this was not a city issue, and others didn't. But what they shared in common was that they were going to vote for Ford to send a message to Miller and the provincial Liberals (and by extension, George Smitherman).

 

[hawc]

David Miller finally takes a shot at Rob Ford.

Wow. Stay classy Miller.

 

[adma]

This is why the council's right-wing is so frustrated. They feel that they have a clear mandate and strong public support to undo all of Miller's policies, but because of meddling Miller-era bureaucrats and narrow-minded councilors, they have been unable to accomplish this goal.

Funny thing is, a lot of those "meddling Miller-era bureaucrats" are actually Lastman-era...

 

[adma]

Have you seen the crap they filled the bombed out areas in England in the 1960s? Much of it is pretty ugly.

Go visit Coventry city centre - one of the cities that Germany firebombed.

Note that I said "bombs is good". That I used "is" rather than "are" should indicate I was being sarcastic.

Conversely, a lot of that "crap" is ironically cherishable in some quarters today.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Normally intelligent people voted for him knowing he was a jackass, that's the sad thing. A sort of bloody-minded madness took over.

You're right...I know a few of them. Ok...so they knew he was a jackass...but what was it that allowed them to overlook everything that was obviously bad about him?

It was the fantasy that they wanted to believe about his fiscal policy. They just couldn't face the reality quite yet that the under-spending that had gone on far too long didn't have some kind of magical fix. Ford's fiscal policy, as laid out during his campaign was nonsensical. It was obvious nothing he said could be done (except get rid of unpopular taxes, which would just make the problem worse...not better). That's why people believed in the gravy train.

 

[Ak2809]

And it was a hard lesson to learn.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

hawc:

Considering the things the current worship has said in and out of camera, classy isn't something he had any claims over, then and now. And besides, Fraud did say that Sheppard* won't cost taxpayer a cent, no?

AoD

*Note: In hindsight - he might be right - at this rate the sucker won't be built at all. But even then, there are contractor penalties to consider. Not quite "a cent" either.

 

[hawc]

Ford got elected because his populist, anti-tax message arrived at just the right moment to capture the attention of the electorate and win over many non-politically engaged people and even some populist leftists.

Let's also not forget about the garbage strike.

That more than anything was the straw that broke the camel's back.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

We need to force Miller or someone like him to run in 2014. Toronto felt like such a nicer place back in the Miller era.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The TTC commission meeting was held behind closed doors, for the first hours, and open only towards the end. Didn't Rob Ford want open door meetings?

[video=youtube;zEwtEa5SBIs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEwtEa5SBIs[/video]