Ford’s Simple 2010 Formula for Winning a Toronto Election

By Gary Morton

Direct to Voter has worked for Obama and the Tea Party and Rob Ford in Toronto.

Define the populist issues and claim them as your own well before the vote. Get onside with the issues that most anger average voters. It only works if you do it in advance. If you are part of the problem and it’s been in the news it won’t work for you. Ford tackled the Gravy Train of wasteful spending at City Hall. He ran his poll on the issues early on to identify the core populist issue.
The leader must be an average man or woman of the people. Have a popular image and be the guy or gal next door. Voters must think that the leader is suffering as they are suffering from bad government and that there are simple political methods to fix the problems. Being elite only works for some select people. Ford in two terms as a councilor created an image of himself as the people’s man tackling waste and money mismanagement at City Hall. Plus he identified all his supporters, called them and kept their phone numbers.
Run a good election campaign. All of the usual stuff still applies. So do it all if you can and get the media endorsements if you can. Ford got endorsed by the Sun and the National Post and was often on 640 AM Radio. Other than that the entire Toronto media was against him yet couldn’t stop him.
Direct to Voter. It can work for you even if the media is against you. Ford used robo calls. Example: The Toronto Star has three columns in one day trashing Rob Ford. The reader reads them then a robo call comes out over the phone. It’s Rob talking like a nice guy about the issues to his core supporters and in the end these voters feel that somehow Rob is a nice guy being wronged by the establishment.
Expand Direct to Voter to everything. Ford asked people at his victory party to fill out a contact form. After being elected he appeared on the news asking people worried about his election to call him. He keeps a list of all his supporters and possible supporters. Basically he gathered and is gathering a huge list for robo calls and emails. He can even separate it into core support and voters he wants to win over.
And don’t forget that Rob Ford is the mayor of Toronto because he phoned or emailed everyone back and did everything to add to that list.
On Election Day and in the Advance Polls you do like Ford. The robo calls and emails go out all day asking supporters to come out and vote for the candidate. Plus you include one personal call from campaign staff.
Of course this all relies on the fact that you are a person people believe in and have a campaign team, and at the beginning brought in a qualified fundraiser. Meaning you can’t do it from the fringe. But if you can get fundraising and follow this formula you may well win.

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