LORINC: Fourth quarter and Team Ford is down by a few

If you lived inside Rob Ford’s brain these days, what kind of thoughts would you expect to see floating by?

After watching the revolving door spectacle last week, it struck me that the brothers Ford and their old football buddy/business partner David Price might find themselves in a coaching frame of mind. Heading into the fourth quarter, three touchdowns behind, and trying for a come-from-behind win in order to go on to the Superbowl. Hail Mary passes and all that.

From previous columns, I know some Spacing readers question the use of sports metaphors for political commentary, arguing that such language, because it presumes a working knowledge of the applicable jargon, tends to be opaque.

But in the case of this surreal and, as yet, faceless campaign to rescue the mayor from the crack smoking allegations, the football analogy might offer some clues into the sudden shift in his conduct that became obvious by last Thursday.

So let’s unpack the sports metaphor. First, here’s what Ford, and any other sports nut, knows very well: there are some star athletes who either have problems with performance enhancing drugs or cultivate a bad-boy lifestyle that surfaces with sensational media scandals about womanizing (basketball’s Wilt Chamberlin), gambling (baseball’s Pete Rose), and drug or alcohol abuse (hockey’s Derek Sanderson).

For many of these guys, fan adulation survives the scandal, although the athletes themselves may not survive their own antics. Does Ford see himself in these terms? I have no special insight. But I’d say it’s a safe bet that since he became mayor, he has privately viewed his role on council, and in the city at large, as that of the quarterback or the head coach. In any event, the guy who calls the plays. Not a saint, but blessed with a sense of how to get the ball into the end zone.

Or so goes the dream sequence.

Now think about the narrative of last week’s staff firings and hirings. To the media, his critics and the thousands of Torontonians watching the play-by-play on twitter, this story was all about betrayal, managerial chaos and so on. And on its face, all true. But in the Ford universe, perhaps Price and the brothers are trying to purge the team of lousy, tired players in favour of young, energetic recruits. No one asks if the QB’s off-field conduct is hampering his game. Rather, they’re thinking: what we need is fresh legs and new plays.

One example of the latter: his revised approach to the media. Ford, by later in the week, had abandoned the reverse fake (slipping out the side door), which wasn’t working, in favour of a run up the middle (daily mini-pressers). This play, for those who hate football, occurs when the team with the ball simply tries to push its way through a wall of hulking linemen. Indeed, when Ford finds himself confronting the media horde staking out his office, does he, in his his mind’s eye, watch himself powering through a phalanx of nasty linebackers? Does Doug, or the apparently loyal Price, think in those terms? I have no idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

So what? Well, language matters. As with so many facets of Ford’s mayoralty, there’s an oppressive sense of two factions speaking two different tongues, neither comprehensible to the other. The media, his critics and the experts talk about policy, governance, accountability, etc. But what if Ford conceives of his mayoralty, including this sordid sideshow about the video, as if it were a football game, one in which the star is a rough-hewn underdog, the kind of journeyman who almost never becomes a quarterback? What if Ford has told himself, the star player never quits in the middle of the game?

As others have noted, it’s clear that Ford’s new moves — the pressers, the birthday cake, the campaign-style tweets — appear to be positioning him for the upcoming election. It’s about slowly and steadily moving the pigskin back up the field until he’s positioned to score/win. And that’s not a sports metaphor; I’d bet it’s actually the strategy his advisors have adopted, and, more important, an approach Ford intuitively understands.

The mayor, of course, has been in campaign mode since he took office because he only sees the universe in Manichean terms: us vs. them, my team vs. your team. In the world of competitive team sports, unlike the world of political governance, one doesn’t compromise with the other squad. One tries to defeat it.

Yet what happens when Team Ford (“Ford Nation” is a misnomer) begins to operationalize its come-from-behind victory fantasy? Many questions should arise that have nothing to do with crack. One of the more intriguing problems for journalists covering what’s left of the Ford administration will be determining how much of the work being done inside his office is actually about assembling a campaign machine. Were these new staffers hired to advance a policy agenda tailored for governing through the rest of Ford’s term, or have they been tasked with helping him prepare for the 2014 campaign?

It’s a key detail. After all, the 2014 election period doesn’t official begin for seven months, and the resources of the mayor’s office should never be used to build a campaign. (Indeed, Ford has barked at length about how councillors use their office budget to put out promotional materials meant to ensure their re-election.)

So from where I sit, Ford’s new response to the crack scandal could and should raise tough questions about whether he’s begun to use tax dollars for partisan purposes. As anyone concerned about fair elections will concede, there’s nothing more important, if you pardon the metaphor, than a level playing field.