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| By Miami-Dade Police Department [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
And that joke, in the ongoing Ford Saga, is OLD. Think about that.
People with just a rudimentary interest in politics are at least aware of Rob Ford, even if only through a vague, nagging sense that something is terribly rotten in the state of Canada. Those with an interest in US comedy shows like The Daily Show or Jimmy Kimmel Live have a greater understanding that there is a crack-smoking, alcoholic, sexist, douchebag running one of the largest cities in North America.
What you might not have heard, and what continues to be a source of dismay for political commentators all across the spectrum, is that this asshole continues to have a "bedrock of support" that variably ranges in approval ratings of 30-40%.
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| Sebastiaan ter Burg via Compfight cc |
Or maybe the poll skewed on a day where a lot of people were hitchhiking?
There's been plenty written about the bizarre appeal of Rob Ford - supposed everyman, plain-spoken, simple message - but what hasn't been said nearly enough, or by many people, is that this is tremendous insult to Conservative voters everywhere.
Yes, you read that correctly. For all that people insist that Rob Ford was elected purely to spite a (largely invented) demographic of entitled, downtown, latte-swilling elitists, his image as a staunch conservative with spendthrift policies is, well, just an image. The most basic investigation of Ford's outlandish claims reveals what anyone with a functioning frontal cortex suspected: his achievements, if you can all them that, are dubious at best, and outright lies at worst.
None of this, claim the supporters, matters. What matters is that he's down there at Toronto City Hall, mixing it up, getting in there, rattling the cages. To what end? To the apparent end that taxes remain low, pennies are watched, and the purported flow of gravy - above all else, the gravy - is stopped.
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| Special*Dark via Compfight cc |
Why did he have to bring gravy into this? Gravy is delicious.
All of this to apparently satisfy the revenge fantasies of a large portion of a city that had felt ignored by a left-leaning administration that governed with a "tax and spend" ideology. This, they say, was the source of their grief. TAX. AND. SPEND.
My query, then, to this complaint, is simple: is this man seriously the best you could come up with?
No, I'm being serious here. The insinuation of Ford, and by and large, Ford supporters (and before we go thinking they're the same nebulous group of people that believe in Bigfoot, I have spoken to them and they do in fact exist and are not altogether insane), is that there is literally NO OTHER MAN IN TORONTO, NAY, IN ALL OF CANADA, capable of performing and implementing the fiscally responsible agenda so desired by the suburbs of the Greater Toronto Area.
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| By Shaun Merritt (Mayoral candidates Uploaded by Skeezix1000) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
For the record, the mayoral candidates of 2010
(and not, as you might have suspected, Toronto's very own Reservoir Dogs)
(and not, as you might have suspected, Toronto's very own Reservoir Dogs)
We know this is wrong. We know this is patently, provably, wrong, because there ARE people who run the city better than Rob Ford and maintain a fiscally responsible agenda. They are the councilors who voted in favour of his budget (even as he voted against it; hey, maybe he was high, all right?), and the city manager and staff who, obeying the direction of city council, slashed city budgets through service cuts and staff attrition. None of this was due to the mayor. The mayor was busy arriving late for work, campaigning for re-election, and - oh yeah - trying frantically to keep his criminal associations on the D/L while procuring drugs from the aforementioned criminal associates.
My point is this: there are literally thousands, if not millions of Canadians who share in Rob Ford's (conveniently adopted) fiscal agenda yet come with none of the hang-ups of crack use, lying, and general disregard for basic governing practices.
Why are his supporters so insistent on clinging to him?
I would speculate that they feel that abandoning him would be tantamount to admitting that there is something inherently wrong with being Conservative, that they made a horrendous mistake in appointing a well-known racist and vehicular murder enthusiast to the highest office in the city.
Let me tell you now: there are better ways.
One is already being demonstrated quite clearly in Alberta, as famously incompetent MP Rob Anders is facing open revolt from within his riding. Yes, the ghoulishly resurrected specter of former Conservative MLA and Minister of Health (and later Energy) Ron Liepert, like some avenging angel of the holy ghost of Ralph Klein, has arisen from his battered coffin to do battle with the man who once told the House of Commons that Thomas Mulcair 'hastened' the death of Jack Layton.
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| CC image via 5of7 on Flickr |
Yep. He's a real cowboy.
Anders, of course, has been quick to suggest that Liepert is not a "true" conservative. There we have the meat of it. The division of modern Conservatives has transformed into something ugly, something that conjures to mind eerie labels all too reminiscent of a certain fellow named Joseph McCarthy.
That's the real price of people like Rob Ford, and people like Rob Anders, a world where rhetoric trumps substance, where ideas are shunted aside in favour of sound bites (although a lesser consequence would be an abundance of idiots named Rob).
My suggestion to those people who sincerely desire conservative governance is simple: find the best of you, and support those people. Believe it or not, there are tools in place to give you the power to oust the incompetent and replace them with the capable. Liepert's challenge is one. The upcoming Reform Act could be another.
Remain with the loudest, most obnoxious voice at your own peril. Keep telling us that this is how conservatives like to be represented, and something truly awful might happen.
We might start believing you.
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