- Captain Pritchard, Foundation and Empire
Political people often like to think of themselves as a class apart; they feel, if not openly express, a "we are smart, they are dumb" perception of the public. Whereas the public can be swayed with carefully scripted attack messages and are supposed to lap up spin like animals at a shrinking water hole, they are immune to populist pandering. Where lesser mortals and lesser candidates will leap at the latest shiny new bobble, they have the discipline to stay the course.
If you have too many priorities, you have no priorities. If you stand behind whoever is in the limelight, you will wither in their shadow.
Enter Rob Ford, stage centre - for their can be no creeping into the frame where he is concerned.
I remember sitting in a boardroom just before to the municipal election that propelled Ford to victory; the sentiment being expressed by the high-priced consultants around the table was that it was quite likely Ford would win. "Don't worry," they told themselves; "he's kind of a buffoon. We'll totally be able to work that to our advantage."
That sentiment has been shared by many of Ford's bedfellows over his action-packed term as Mayor. Politics is all about winning, after all - if you can bask in the light shone on a superstar, that's an opportunity not to be missed.
Make no mistake - many of those who have cosied up to Ford in public will call him a clown behind his back; they seem him as a resource to benefit from, not a person nor an equal. When things seem to turn against Ford, they will back away, as political people will do - bad press is a contagion they never, ever want to catch.
But whenever Ford survives his latest scandal, they're back, increasingly cow-towing to his two-dimensional vision of what the city should look like. As such, people who should know better, who make a living preaching the long-game, have been aligning themselves with Ford, cribbing his language and his messages.
In other words, the clown has become the ringmaster.
Whatever happened to that unshakable discipline of the experienced political veterans? How is it that their own visions, if there were visions, have been so easily discarded in favour of the house of cards that is Ford Nation? What message does this acquiescence send to the general public about the priorities of politicians in Ford's orbit?
Rob Ford is stubborn, undisciplined, bullish, petulant and functionally fixed in his presentation. He also, rather demonstrably, has personal issues that those trying to gain from his brand are making worse through their neglect of Ford, the man. Yet he is unquestionably one of the most influential political figures on the provincial landscape today.
There's a significant, uncomfortable lesson in this for today's political leaders. Yes, the Fords have coarsened our politics, but they've been in the gutter for some time already. If anything, the Mayor serves as a mirror, darkly, reflecting back to the political class how far too many people see them as a whole.
It's time our political leaders and the people that support them take a good, hard look at themselves and question whether they have been deluding themselves.
In this, Rob Ford can hopefully serve as a catalyst for some much-needed political introspection. If the people who think they in charge, aren't, then perhaps the people whose advice they have been wilfully ignoring aren't as foolish as once believed.
After all, we are all mortal; we're players on the same stage, whether we choose to play it that way or not.
By refusing to budge, refusing to change and by lashing out at everyone who points out his flaws, Rob Ford has given the rest of us the best possible reason to start doing the opposite.
Forward, together - there's no priority more basic than that.
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