Rob Ford quits mayoral race, but brother Doug steps in

A period of scandal marked by outrageous, offensive, bizarre and frequently entertaining conduct took yet another circus-like twist Friday when an ailing Rob Ford ended his bid for re-election as mayor, choosing instead to run for city council. Toronto voters, however, will still have the option to chose a Ford for a mayor as Rob Ford’s councillor brother, Doug, entered the mayoral race in his stead. As a crush of reporters and photographers tried to keep up with the developments, city hall officials confirmed the mayor had taken his name off the ballot for next month’s vote just ahead of an official deadline to do so.

Now I could be facing a battle of my lifetime and I want the people of Toronto to know that I intend to face this challenge head on.

Rob Ford in a statement

The mayor is instead running in his west-end ward, where his nephew Michael Ford had been registered to run before he too withdrew Friday. Rob Ford had been admitted to hospital on Wednesday and recently underwent a biopsy after doctors discovered a “fair sized” abdominal tumor. Still, the often larger than life mayor—elected in 2010 on the strength of his cri-de-coeur of “it’s time to stop the gravy train”—continued to campaign for re-election.

I’ll say it again — If the Rob Ford saga had been written as fiction, it would have been deemed too unbelievable for publication.

Robyn Doolittle, author of “Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story,” on Twitter

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