What's the deal with Mayor Rob Ford??

[viper37]

I guess I don't follow the news in Canada closely enough, I'm sure this is big news up there. Since when does Toronto elect an obese crack head to be Mayor? 

the last one was skinny pothead dressing in rainbow colours.

[Barrister]

Now Ford admits to smoking crack "in one of my drunken stupors". 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mayor-rob-ford-yes-i-have-smoked-crack-cocaine-1.2415533

[crazy canuck]

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford admitted  he smoked crack cocaine about a year ago in a "drunken stupor."

"Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine but ... am I an addict? No. Have I tried it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago," Mr. Ford said during a City Hall scrum on Tuesday.

If he had just come clean about smoking crack in the first place this story would have gone nowhere except for the puritans.  This goes to the odd defence that there was no video and not addressing the question of whether he was smoking crack with drug dealers.

Second, even now he is deflecting and giving the impression of being dishonest.  If he knows he tried it how does he not know when and in what circumstances.  If he was in a drunken stupor how does he know he tried it?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't consider myself a puritan, but I'd probably have some qualms with my Mayor strolling around town meeting with drug dealers that his driver knows, and smoking crack cocaine. Crack cocaine is a poor hood drug, I don't really know what a respectable member of the ruling class is doing using it when he could have been snorting coke or something more appropriate for his economic/societal station.

[Barrister]

I don't consider myself a puritan, but I'd probably have some qualms with my Mayor strolling around town meeting with drug dealers that his driver knows, and smoking crack cocaine. Crack cocaine is a poor hood drug, I don't really know what a respectable member of the ruling class is doing using it when he could have been snorting coke or something more appropriate for his economic/societal station.

You don't seem to appreciate what Rob Ford's "economic/societal station" is.

[Admiral Yi]

How did a street thug become mayor of a major metropolis? 

[OttoVonBismarck]

He wears a "chain of office" I was hoping that meant at minimum he was upper middle class. It says his family is loaded and owns some company with $100m/year in revenue. That is enough that he should be elevated to coke instead of crack.

[OttoVonBismarck]

How did a street thug become mayor of a major metropolis?

My research in the wake of this indicates Toronto basically annexed a bunch of the suburbs because the lefties who lived in the city didn't like the suburbanites "freeloading" off of Toronto city services, but didn't realize that also would make the electorate more prone to elect a conservative from...the suburbs. Which is basically what appears to have happened. He made a name for himself as a hardcore fiscal conservative in a city long ran by profligate liberals.

[crazy canuck]

I don't consider myself a puritan, but I'd probably have some qualms with my Mayor strolling around town meeting with drug dealers that his driver knows, and smoking crack cocaine. Crack cocaine is a poor hood drug, I don't really know what a respectable member of the ruling class is doing using it when he could have been snorting coke or something more appropriate for his economic/societal station.

You don't seem to appreciate what Rob Ford's "economic/societal station" is.

Bingo

Otto,  Ford got elected on a platform which proudly declared his anti-establishment, anti-intellectual and anti ruling-class status.  If someone in one of those groups had been around to advise him he probably could have turned this story to his advantage early on.  Who knows he still might do.

[Admiral Yi]

My research in the wake of this indicates Toronto basically annexed a bunch of the suburbs because the lefties who lived in the city didn't like the suburbanites "freeloading" off of Toronto city services, but didn't realize that also would make the electorate more prone to elect a conservative from...the suburbs. Which is basically what appears to have happened. He made a name for himself as a hardcore fiscal conservative in a city long ran by profligate liberals.

OK, how did a street thug become mayor of one of the suburbs of a major metropolis?

White people aren't supposed to do this.

[Caliga]

Not enough blacks in Canada

[OttoVonBismarck]

Bingo

Otto,  Ford got elected on a platform which proudly declared his anti-establishment, anti-intellectual and anti ruling-class status.  If someone in one of those groups had been around to advise him he probably could have turned this story to his advantage early on.  Who knows he still might do.

Maybe this is a cultural difference, here in America crack is overwhelming a complete black, ghetto drug with some very white trash whites using it. Rich people, no matter their being anti-establishment or not, simply don't do this kind of thing in America. They snort coke, like Bush or Obama did.

[garbon]

Not enough blacks in Canada

But Canadians are black.

[CountDeMoney]

it when he could have been snorting coke or something more appropriate for his economic/societal station.

Maybe in 1989.  Crack doesn't have the stigma anymore, is more conveniently portable and, of course, gets you higher faster than powdered coke all stepped on with incense or baby laxative.

[OttoVonBismarck]

it when he could have been snorting coke or something more appropriate for his economic/societal station.

Maybe in 1989.  Crack doesn't have the stigma anymore, is more conveniently portable and, of course, gets you higher faster than powdered coke all stepped on with incense or baby laxative.

I feel like the world has passed me by.