Doug Ford is Movin' On Up

Three and a half months.

That's how long it took after Doug Ford's election to Toronto City Council for him to notice that greener pastures might await him. He was elected on October 25th and today is February 10th. And he was on vacation in Florida for some of that time.

To be fair, the mayor's "brain" and brother has announced that he's running for the provincial Progressive Conservatives, but has said that his arm is getting twisted "big time", presumably by Tim Hudak, and that he will "never say never" or rule out a provincial campaign as soon this October.

According to The Toronto Star, the Tories aren't as shy about discussing Doug's future, at least on background.

“He’s made no secret about the fact he’d like to run for us,” said one Tory, who would welcome him into the fold.

In fact, the successful businessman, who donates his city council salary to charity, has confided to associates that one day he would like to lead the Tories.

However, party sources, who stress he is close to Hudak and would never undermine the leader, said any discussions about a move from city hall to Queen’s Park are only at the earliest stages.

Well, apparently not anymore. That tells me that Ford and the Hudak Tories are idiots. Why in the hell would anyone involved in this mess be talking to the Goddamned Liberal Media if the discussions "are only at the earliest stages"? Are these people actually trying to look stupid? Doug Ford isn't going to be able to do or say anything without getting relentlessly questioned about his political future until he makes a decision.

More importantly, Ford's constituents are going to be thrilled by this. It should be remembered that they only just elected the guy to represent him and now he's musing about abandoning ship. If he resigns his council seat to run provincially, the city is going to have to hold an election to replace him, which will cost a fortune. Or maybe Doug's is one of the seats that Hizzoner can eliminate. He has to run out of fucking siblings at some point, right?

The interesting question is how did this get in the press in the first place? The way I see it, there are three possibilities;

1. Doug himself leaked it, which makes him a moron. This can't be anything but embarrassing to the mayor, who campaigned on not wasting money on things like unnecessary elections and has described his brother as virtually indispensable. his leaking the story without having made a decision makes no sense, even in the fabled history of the Ford family saying incomprehensible things.
2. The Hudak people leaked it, which is even dumber than Doug doing it. Given the week that the provincial Tories have been having, I wouldn't be at all surprised by this. It also reinforces my belief that Tim Hudak's election as premier is close to a physical impossibility.
3. The Queen's Park Grits found out about it and leaked it. That tells me that Ford, Hudak or both are incapable of keeping a friggin' secret and should be thrown right of politics.

If nothing else, it turns out that Doug's pledge to donate his municipal salary to charity isn't the financial hit we thought it was.

And I can't wait to see how conservative bloggers and media types, particularly at The Toronto Sun, who have a long history of bitching about City Hall being used as a springboard by NDP types respond to this story. Wanna bet they'll equivocate or otherwise lie?