Toronto mayoral candidates should focus on beating Rob Ford, not calling for his resignation

Most eyes were on Mayor Rob Ford last week as he made his triumphant (or whatever) return from rehab, but there was an interesting sideshow to that main stage circus act.

As the mayor went on his comeback tour, his leading challengers in the mayoral race spent the week getting into a bit of a tiff over their respective calls for him to resign.

It started with John Tory, who has been very clear from the beginning. He thinks Ford should step down.

And he’s got a decent point.

If Ford’s behaviour doesn’t warrant a call for his resignation, what the heck would it take? High treason? Arson? Kicking a small puppy then laughing about it?

Olivia Chow, on the other hand, didn’t outright call for Ford’s resignation until last Wednesday, after the Tory campaign had spent several weeks up until then deriding Chow for not jumping on the resignation bandwagon. Taking aim at Chow, Tory spokeswoman Amanda Galbraith said Chow’s delayed response demonstrated a “serious failure of leadership on her part.”

Lurking under all this is an undercurrent of nasty, cynical politics — the kind that can only come with our dusty old first-past-the-post voting system. The mayoral polls over the last month have shown a pretty clear trend, giving Chow a strong lead with Ford, Tory, Karen Stintz and David Soknacki in the race. Remove Ford from the equation, however, and Tory and Chow are basically tied for first place.

Some pessimistic observers have tied these polls to Chow’s unwillingness to call for Ford’s resignation. With Ford firmly ensconced in the mayor’s office and continuing to run for re-election, the theory goes, Chow benefits from a split vote. So it’s in her best interest to do what she can to keep Ford in the race.

The problem with that theory is that Ford simply won’t resign. Probably ever. The Chow campaign doesn’t need to do anything to keep him in the race because Ford isn’t going anywhere. It’s just about the only thing we can trust him on. If he’s made it this far without hitting the eject button, why not go further?

But I will say this: If there are any voices in the Chow campaign team talking about strategy that includes keeping Ford competitive to engineer a Chow victory, they should think twice. You play with that kind of fire and the whole city could get burned.

Besides, the better, smarter strategy would be for candidates to stop with the Ford focus and simply talk more about substantive, realistic, affordable ideas for this city.

Because, sure, Ford should resign, but he won’t. So all his opponents can and should do is tell us why they should be the one to beat him in October.