Think Rob Ford is a flash in the pan? Listen to Mark Dewdney, who is running for city council in Ward 30, an east-end district that includes the neighbourhoods of Leslieville and Riverdale. It is part of a riding held federally by NDP Leader Jack Layton and provincially by NDPer Peter Tabuns. Mr. Dewdney, who operates a small business, is running against Paula Fletcher, a left-leaning member of city council.
Yet when Mr. Dewdney goes door to door to solicit votes, he hears a lot about Mr. Ford, the surprise front-runner in the campaign for mayor. Eight times so far, people have promised to display one of Mr. Dewdney's campaign signs only if he promises to get one of Mr. Ford's to put up beside it. "If you're voting for Rob Ford," they tell him, "you've got my vote."
"There is a lot of anger out there," says Mr. Dewdney. "I get this vision of Rob Ford standing over a pile of brush and he's got this tinderbox." After years of tax increases and wasteful spending, "Wow, is there a backlash," says the candidate. "It's a tsunami out there."
Many election-watchers believe the wave will subside as the final six weeks of the campaign unfold and voters sour on Mr. Ford and his simplistic message. For the sake of the city, pray they do. But the anger he has tapped runs deep.
Veteran pollster John Wright of Ipsos Public Affairs says, "that there are times when the wind is up and somebody just opens up their sails and catches it." Mr. Ford is that guy. With his rants about the St. Clair West streetcar-line fiasco and lavish retirement parties at city hall, he has been perfectly positioned to exploit the belligerent, resentful mood that seems to have seized the city since last summer's frustrating strike by city workers.
A poll back then showed that just 12 per cent of residents believed that their tax money was being well spent at city hall, the lowest figure for any city in the country. At that point, more than a year before the vote, "the issue had already been defined," says Mr. Wright.
The goings on at city hall since then have done nothing to propitiate the electorate. Ms. Fletcher's famous tirade at an observer in the council chamber, Speaker Sandra Bussin's famous undercover phone call to a radio show, the incident of the sleeping TTC ticket taker, long delays on the renovation of Bloor Street's Mink Mile - all these things put wind in Mr. Ford's sails.
Now, says Mr. Wright, "Rob Ford is like a guy who has a breakaway on the St. Lawrence." It's not clear anyone can stop him. None of his rivals has been able to craft a pitch to compete with his vision of a pared-down city hall run as tightly as his family's label-and-tag business. One of them, Rocco Rossi, seems so desperate for attention that, on Monday, he proposed reviving the Spadina expressway - this time, in a tunnel.
We've seen this sort of thing before, the moment when vengeful voters toss a prime minister or premier out on his ear. The mood in Toronto today seems much like the one that ousted premier Bob Rae and brought Mike Harris and his Common Sense Revolution to power. Voters feel disrespected and hell hath no fury like a citizen scorned.
If Mr. Ford is a rather crude character, well, so was Alberta's Ralph Klein when he took office. From what Mark Dewdney is hearing about Mr. Ford on the doorstep, many voters don't care. They are telling him, "We don't give a damn about his platform, we just want revenge."