Rob Ford has many fans. According to a poll conducted by Forum Research a couple of days after Sarah Thomson accused Ford of groping her, 43 per cent of Torontonians said they approved of the job he is doing as mayor. The pollster tried to explain Ford’s popularity to a Toronto Sun reporter. No bad press ever sticks to Ford, he said. “He’s made of Teflon.” I don’t think that’s exactly right. I suspect that Ford’s gaffes, his brushes with the law, his peculiar malapropisms and hysterical outbursts endear him to much of Toronto.

He’s unpolished and sincere—rare qualities in a politician. We live in an image-conscious age when even low-level public figures have press advisors. And yet Ford never seems fake. During the speech he gave after he won his conflict of interest appeal (the one in which he said the experience of being almost ousted was “very, very humbling”) he looked beaten down, sad and vulnerable. I wondered if he was perhaps a little disappointed that he still had a job. We know that he often sneaks away from the office to coach football. If he were unemployed he could coach full time, without fear of rebuke.

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