Ford Nation

The Argos crowd went wild chanting "Rob Ford  Rob Ford".  The team owners asked the police to escort him out and council is busy chopping him down to their size, but a flawed champion is better than none at all. He's giving a voice to the crowd who've had it up to here.  Had it up to here with rulers that sniff at vulgar beliefs held widely by the Canadian electorate.  Beliefs like don't throw good money after bad, honour the marriage and families of normal couples, test kids to see how they are doing in school and see they know the time tables, have consequences for bad behaviour, keep out of debt as much as possible, respect Christian faith, lay off the non-stop promotion of homosexuality, let people "keep their plan",  let volunteer groups decide who can join, enforce the law on reserves same as off the reserves, skip most of the minority quotas, quit the handouts to artsy insider groups and big business, don't get your panties in a knot every time you see a rifle and a deer on the roof rack, expect immigrants to fit in and use one of the founding languages,  use a little common sense when a law seems heavy-handed,  leave room for people who want to home school or charter school their kids, stuff like that.

This Sun News report from the Argos game:

If the mayor is supposed to be down and out, the crowds of people who ran across him Sunday did not receive the memo. They can strip him of his power at city council but that clearly did not affect his popularity among the fans at Sunday's Argos game.
With the kind of pandemonium surrounding the mayor as he entered and exited the stadium, you would think the Boatmen had pulled out the win against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. But what should have been a sombre exit for fans, ended up being a raucous parade for an embattled, world-famous politician.
"Rob Ford, Rob Ford, Rob Ford," chanted the mob which -- with the help of Rogers Centre security and Toronto Police -- ushered the mayor out into his famous Black Escalade.
The atmosphere around the mayor was rabid. In fact, it was a frenzy.
In 22 years of covering the biggest stars who come to Toronto, I have never seen any other human receive this kind of adulation and spirited veneration.
Pure adulation. Adoration. Lionization.
Sorry anti-Ford Nation, or the 42 other members of city council and those lining up to run for mayor, but that's what happened.
If it changes, I will let you know.

"Flawed" may be too sweet a word for his character.  Some is downright ugly.   But I like him and trust him more than the Minnan-Wongs who think they are analyzing the mayor's civic policy by saying, "He used the p word in a very derogatory way".

Canadian Cincinnatus points to the Mayor's real achievements:

Why would I rate Ford as good? Forget about his personal life for a moment and look only at his public record: he eliminated the car tax, eliminated the plastic bag tax, he balanced the budget, he privatized half of Toronto’s garbage collection, he took many steps to clean up the corruption at Metro Housing caused by Miller’s cronies, and he browbeat a Scarborough Subway extension out of the subway-hating Ontario Liberals. Which other mayor can match this record?

More from the Sun's amazing story of Ford at the football game:

Up at the Rogers Centre in a public lot, Ford paid the parking machine and then headed into the game. Walking in with him is what it must have been like for Elvis and the Beatles. I swear to God. It was insane.
He could not get in the door and once he did, he posed for hundreds of more pictures and signed dozens of autographs. People were actually telling him to not change.
"I love Rob Ford," Paul Reid said. "He is one of us."
"He's human and made some mistakes," added Tom Miras. "We have all done that.""I would vote for him again for sure," Andy Michalik said.

Think about it.
You who are outraged in front of microphones, don't you sometimes wonder if there are planks or even timbers missing from your platform?