Once More, Without Feeling

If you'll permit me one more look at Rob Ford, here's another interesting aspect of his phenomena that doesn't directly involve crack.

People have made a big deal over the fact that he still has non-trivial support levels. And more to the point, if the non-hothead/crackhead vote is split enough ways, he might even win. But it occurred me that there's a much more mundane oddity here: it's not often you see so much enthusiasm for anyone's re-election.

Obviously, politicians get reelected all the time, but usually the base undergoes a big change for the pragmatic (and smaller) during that first term. President Obama is a good example. When he was first elected, his supporters were about as enthusiastic as any voters I've seen in my lifetime. When he was reelected, most of those same people voted for him again, but were far less happy about it. A lot of his votes were against the opposition rather than for him, and a fair number were probably based on devil-you-know reasoning. And that's how it usually works. You might get reelected, but don't expect anyone outside the party's strongest supporters to be happy about it.

But Ford's supporters - fewer though may be now - do seem to be bringing the enthusiasm to his re-election that one normally only sees for a leader that has yet to be sullied by reality.

The explanation is pretty obvious, really. If you're still supporting Ford, it could only be because you whole-heartedly accept his version of events, and the schtick that the police and media are against them. And if you believe Ford when he says he's clean and sober, you're also going to take his word for it that he's single-handedly saved the city billions and that life under his predecessors was relentless hell.

Ford is the ultimate in the modern political approach of media manipulations. Other parties may have a newspaper or news network on their side, bending the truth in their direction. But Ford goes one better: by building his support on the premise that even media is part of the problem, he doesn't need anyone to manipulate the news for him, he is the news source. It makes you wonder if other politicians will try the extreme confrontation/persecution strategy in the future.