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One week out, Toronto’s election gets crazier by the day

By John Michael McGrath

The polls will close in just over a week, but the election race in Toronto keeps getting odder and odder. Here’s a roundup of election errata: some of it is zany fun; other stuff is just weird; and just for good luck, we’ll throw in some useful information.

• A few months back, the city released an ad for a municipal service that was both engaging and funny. That alone was news, but it’s also been parodied and put to use as—what else?—a video against Rob Ford (at left). Hey, they can’t all be Old Spice parodies.

• Blob Ford’s blog: Hey, remember that satirical blog the Rob Ford campaign shut down with the threat of a defamation suit? Well, the same author is back, this time with at least as much terrible imagery involving a weighty Etobicoke city councillor who’s totally not Rob Ford. Seriously unsafe for younger viewers.

OneToronto is a group that claims to have succeeded in lowering the level of city-bashing that occurred early in the race. (Or perhaps it’s just that Rob Ford went quiet for a few weeks, thereby lowering Toronto-targeted hate speech.) But hey, why not? At least they’re not taking credit for stopping Fox News North.

• “Sign a declaration swearing you will NOT vote @RobFord & will give u $100 off your purchase.” That’s what Queen West furniture store the Design Republic tweeted last week. The message has since disappeared, so it was either a limited-time offer or maybe somebody thought twice about that.

• The Toronto Environmental Alliance put out its mayoral scorecard last week, and it’s about as lopsided as you can imagine: George Smitherman and Joe Pantalone get A+, while Ford and Rocco Rossi (remember him?) each get an F for not bothering to fill out the questionnaire.

• Hey, did arguments about city politics ruin anybody’s Thanksgiving dinner? Take this poll now that the leftovers are gone and remember the potatoes-and-stuffing-induced acrimony.

• Lest the Internet be accused of being staunchly pro-Smitherman, this campaign has its first Downfall parody, in which the anyone-but-Ford crowd is slyly compared to Hitler. Of course, Hitler is raging because he’s worried that Ford will take his “worst ever leader” away, so it’s hardly an endorsement. And so we won’t be accused of breaking Godwin’s Law, let’s just say right now that we don’t think either Ford or Smitherman will end his tenure as mayor in a bunker underneath Toronto.

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