George Smitherman's Mayoral Campaign Implodes

This is funny.

After relentless effort by the Toronto Star to smear front-running mayoral candidate Rob Ford only to see it backfire, Toronto's leadership campaign has taken a bizarre twist.

Yesterday, in the span of a few hours, Smitherman has had to reverse himself on an ill-conceived idea to tax businesses 10 million dollars in order to pay for a program to force them to hire youth workers. The question is whether Smitherman backtracked because of the outcry against his proposal or because he learned that what he wanted to impose was actually in violation of Ontario law related to the ratio of commercial to residential tax.

The Star, over and over again, has attempted to sink Rob Ford with his alleged gaffes, but with each attack, his popularity soars further.

Ford's comments last month about the need to take care of its own before taking on immigrants was supposed to be a "turning point" according to second-place rival George Smitherman. It was, but not in the way Smitherman anticipated. In the weeks following those remarks, Ford's lead over Smitherman doubled.

Whatever the reason, all the efforts of the Toronto Star have been unable to prevent Ford from succeeding or Smitherman from sabotaging himself.

Will the Star, to whom Rob Ford has said he will not speak to during the campaign following slanderous stories they published about him, now switch allegiances to last-place candidate Rocco Rossi, who was a former executive with Torstar Corp?