Toronto Councilman Rob Ford has died at age 46, following a battle with cancer.
While friends have praised his conservative record as mayor of Toronto, he is most likely to be remembered for his drug binges and headlines like, “Rob Ford admits smoking crack cocaine during ‘drunken stupor’ but refuses to resign.”
Ford always seemed to produce an abundance of bizarre headlines and photos, both drug-related and non-drug related.
In one of his most iconic pictures, he is tickled by Toronto’s Chief Budget Officer Councilor Frank Di Giorgio, who later denied tickling him.
Despite videos of him smoking crack, admitting he was drunk (but never high) at work, and even saying, “Rehab is amazing. It reminds me of football camp. Kind of like the Washington Redskins camp I went to as a kid,” he had higher approval ratings than President Obama. At times, his approval ratings even rose during his scandals.
Ford turned his scandals into an art, even capitalizing on his very own official Rob Ford bobbleheads. It probably helped that many came to view him as a real-life Tommy Boy.
Some have attributed his success in spite of boorishness to his average-Joe persona.
The base of people who liked Ford and his policies in spite of scandal is often referred to as “Ford Nation.” In some ways, it’s reminiscent of the #FeelTheBern or #MakeAmericaGreatAgain movements.
In Ford’s seemingly endless flow of scandal and odd stories, there was a lesson about politics: People can overlook a lot, so long as they continue to feel as though you’re fighting for them.
