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This was a good week for Mayor Rob Ford.
He lost a vote at city council, reinforcing the view he?s council?s leader in title only.
And he admitted to smoking ?a lot of? dope ? hardly a news bulletin when attached to a name associated with allegedly smoking crack cocaine with drug dealers.
His handlers go home for the weekend checking the mayor?s appearance calendar for potential embarrassments. But what else can the mayor do that will surprise or shock his subjects? He?s exhausted the list in less than three years in office.
In short, the week told us what we already know about the mayor. And, for him, that?s as good as it gets.
Slowly it has begun to dawn on Torontonians that the mayor is the mayor. There is no redemption to hope for, no reform that?s coming, no makeover to paper over the craters in his character and personality and public image.
He?s Robbie ? warts and all. And over the next four months, civic, community and opinion leaders will determine whether Toronto can endure five more years of the same: 2014 followed by a second four-year term.
The majority has always been suspicious of this politician. But Ford fooled enough residents to carry the day in the 2010 election.
True believers chafe at the claim that Rob Ford has duped them. Ford is their man ? till death do us part. Loyalty, even in the face of incriminating evidence, is always admirable, even if enabling an emerging evil.
The hard-core base political support is always the least trustworthy to render judgment or provide perspective. It supplies the bulk of the apologists and acolytes, sycophants who are so invested in a candidate, emotionally if not politically, that they can?t be trusted to render objective verdicts.
All around is evidence of dysfunction and disaffection, fissures and fracture, but not till the ship of state sinks will they realize it has taken on water.
The captains and lieutenants have seen inside the hull of the beast and have bailed out. No restoration possible for their leader ? he?s rebuffed their every insistence on assistance and help ? and they?ve rowed away, creating distance.
Ford?s had four chiefs of staff in three years. His office is a revolving door. These satraps believe in the cause. They jump ship because the admiral is a disaster waiting to run aground.
A great trait of Rob Ford is the ability to hold it together while the universe collapses around him. If only he had a functioning moral compass, he might be the kind of general one wants in a civic crisis. As it stands, the reasonable fear is he might be driven to drink.
How does one account for a mayor who turns up drunk to public events, according to reliable accounts, and his deputy and his brother and his political allies claim to having never seen him take a drink. (His brother prevaricated on that claim, then muddied matters more with a mendacious disavowal of his own words.)
Torontonians have already made up their minds about their mayor.
He?s not a leader. He disparages and antagonizes the very city councillors he?s supposed to lead. Citizens put councillors in place to act as a check against wild-card mayor mavericks. Ford would have to suppress every instinct and personality trait to become the conciliatory force his job and title demands.
But voters already know this. They sent Ford to city hall to shake things up, ?stop the gravy train,? register their protest at an attitude that seemed to have poor regard for taxpayers? money.
As it turns out, the waste was deeply exaggerated. And the collateral damage to the city?s image has been substantial. How much longer before all but the hard-core base supporters grow weary?
It won?t take much. The danger for Ford Nation is that even in a good week for Ford, there are enough straws to break the camel?s back.
Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.ca
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