It probably seemed really easy in theory.

Just separate yourself from Rob Ford, the man, the human train wreck, but embrace the policies he’s pursued as mayor. That’s what everybody’s telling us, aren’t they? Love the low taxes, increases in (non-car related) user fees, cutbacks in services and programs. All good. If we could roll back on a little of the crack news and police chief baiting, however, everything would be roses.

The wisdom of the latter portion of that analysis of the electorate’s pulse will be put to the test as the mayoral campaign unfolds especially once a left of centre candidate joins the race… an actual left of centre candidate is going to join the race, I trust. We shall see just how enthusiastic the folks have embraced what have been essentially austerity budgets at the municipal level for the past 3 years, and an alternative approach is truly championed. When the snow and ice have receded… the snow and the ice will eventually recede, I trust, and the city strains to keep up with all the pothole fixing and road re-paving. Never mind the water main breaks and basement flooding.

But even the simple aspect of the presumption, the whole distinguishing yourself from Rob Ford, has not been a swift clean break. At least not right out of the blocks. At least not for either Karen Stintz or John Tory.

“We thought we were getting a responsible leader,” Councillor Karen Stintz told the crowd gathered at Tuesday’s Toronto and Region Board of Trade lunch time kick off to her campaign.

OK, look.

You might’ve agreed with the thrust of the Rob Ford’s 2010 campaign. That the city was sitting on a fiscal cliff. That there wasn’t a revenue problem. There was a spending problem. That it was time to Stop the Gravy Train, blah, blah, blah.

Fine. I think posterity, such as it is only 4 years on, has proven that thesis woefully incorrect. But not my point here.

My point is, nobody in their right mind saw Rob Ford as a ‘responsible leader’. There would be no way to come to that conclusion, looking back over his 10 years as a councillor. Perhaps too many of us failed to see just how irresponsible he’d become but Rob Ford never represented responsible leadership.

What he was, and what his ardent supporters wanted him to be, was a radical break with past municipal governance in this city. Not just his immediate predecessor, David Miller, but even the more loveable, incorrigible, softer conservatism of Mel Lastman. Where Lastman wanted smaller government, Rob Ford and his brand of conservatism just outright hated government.

Rob Ford, Etobian Shiva, politico of destruction. His job was to level the place. He didn’t do a whole lot to disguise that fact. If you signed on, you signed up for that. Otherwise, you signed on blind.

So it’s a bit awkward now if you’re John Tory and news breaks during the first few days of your official candidacy that back in 2010, you donated to both Rob’s mayoral campaign as well as brother-Doug’s councillor race. More awkward still, you invite Rob Ford’s former campaign director and first mayoral chief of staff, Nick Kouvalis, on to your campaign team. The distinction between you and the guy you’re trying not to be gets a little blurry.

Toss in the fact that on his bully pulpit of talk radio, John Tory could hardly be considered the mayor’s harshest critic. Even as a widely acknowledged civic leader as CEO of the Greater TorontoCivic Alliance, where rational public transit policy was promoted, Tory didn’t really push back hard on the grievous assault the mayor inflicted on the city’s transit plans. It’s all well and good to tsk, tsk Rob Ford’s appalling “extra”-curricular behaviour but I’d argue Toronto’s suffering more from the blows inflicted by his malignant policy pushes that Mr. Tory isn’t trying as hard to distance himself from.

At least, Tory’s got some actual, you know, distance between he and the mayor to try and play with. He was never part of the official Team Ford down at City Hall like, say, Councillor Karen Stintz. The mayor’s TTC chair until just a couple weeks ago, responsible for the regular fare hikes and service roll backs. She once wrestled the transit file from him, only to, in perhaps the weirdest twist of crass political pandering imaginable, pretty much hand it right back to him with the Scarborough subway he always wanted. Not exactly in the spot he originally intended but enough in the general vicinity to permit him to triumphantly pound his chest and bellow victory, regardless of how misguided.

The twists and contortions Councillor Stintz is currently performing in order to be Not Rob Ford are equally astounding. It’s as if she’s trying to wipe our minds clean of the past 4 years with the soothing sounds of banality. “A better tomorrow does not rely on yesterday’s politics and old-fashioned thinking,” came one tweet. “We need to get past the dysfunction at City Hall and build a better place to live,” intoned another. “Let’s leave the battles behind us. Let’s leave yesterday’s attitudes behind. Moving forward,” sang one in an almost Andy Williams lyrical style.

She brought bags of sunflower seeds to her Board of Trade speech, bearing the title ‘Grow a strong tomorrow’.

AARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

You can almost hear the gears grinding, smell the oily smoke generated from the calculated effort to be Not Rob Ford. Pick me. I don’t smoke crack. Pick me. I’m congenial not combative. Pick me. I’m just like you.

Team Stintz seems so determined to present a fresh, smiling face of non- belligerence and confrontation that it is scrubbing its candidate clean of anything resembling personality. A computer generated rendering of a perfectly polished aspirant to the mayor’s office, free of controversy or conflict. She is the veritable calm after the storm.

I am not Rob Ford. I am [fill in the blank]. I am whoever you want me to be, bringing subways and change for a better future, free from the nasty pastiness of the past. Vote for me. You will hardly even know I’m here.

— blankly submitted by Cityslikr