John Tory removes himself from Toronto mayoral race, then backtracks

Yesterday, on his 1010 Newstalk radio show, John Tory, the Hamlet of Toronto politics who is perpetually undecided about taking another run at the mayoralty, unequivocally stated he was not running in 2014.

For most of the day, the only media of any kind to report that further was the I Hate the War on Rob Ford facebook page.

Based on that, BlogTO reporter Ed Keenan provided a twitter transcript of Tory`s comments. When contacted by the Toronto Star`s Daniel Dale, Tory retracted his withdrawal, saying that he only meant he`s not `currently` running.

The speculation is that Tory meant it the first time but retracted and is being equivocal about a mayoral run in order to stimulate interest in him and boost his radio show's ratings.

Tory, who has only briefly ever held elected public office as an MPP from 2005-7, is unlikely to enter a race against fiscal conservative like Ford who is also an effective campaigner.  Tory's attempts at elected office were a failed mayoral bid in 2003 which he lost to David Miller, a loss as leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives in 2007, in which he also lost his seat in the provincial legislature, and a loss in a 2009 provincial by-election.

Update - well, obviously I was wrong about Tory ultimately deciding to run for mayor.