Montreal - There is no quit in Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.
Undeterred by the release of cellphone video taken by a drug dealer that purportedly shows him smoking crack cocaine, Ford is vowing to seek another term as mayor of Canada's largest city in October 2014.
“I'm not stepping aside, I'm running in the next election,” Ford told reporters this week.
“If the great people of this city want to go in a different direction, then that's what their prerogative is, but I guarantee my name will be on the ballot,” he said.
Yet even as he promised to stay on, six of his staff members had resigned by Friday.
Nevertheless, Ford assured the press that “things are doing great and we're doing fine.”
His troubles began two weeks ago, when New York-based gossip site Gawker and the Toronto Star newspaper reported having seen the video, which they said was being shopped around by a group of men involved in the drug trade.
An intermediary representing the owners of the video had demanded 200,000 dollars for the footage.
The Toronto Star refused to pay but Gawker launched an online campaign -named Crackstarter - to crowd-fund the money for its purchase. But even as Gawker quickly exceeded its fundraising goal, it lost contact with the seller.
“Ridiculous” is what Ford, 44, has called the allegations that he is on video smoking crack cocaine from a glass pipe. “There's no video,” he has said.
Hounded by reporters camped outside his suburban house and his city hall offices, Ford has tried to portray the scandal as a witch hunt perpetrated by Toronto's liberal media elite who oppose his conservative agenda of cutting taxes and reducing the size of the municipal government.
The potbellied and foul-mouthed former salesman and high school football coach was elected Toronto's mayor in October of 2010
largely due to support from suburban voters, dubbed Ford Nation.
But his refusal to discuss the claims in detail has only further fuelled the scandal, raising concerns that the sordid headlines it has generated worldwide are damaging the city's reputation.
The premier of the province of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, warned she stands ready to intervene in the uproar.
“I'm worried about the situation,” Wynne told reporters late this week. “We're monitoring it very carefully and, as appropriate, we will be involved.”
Still, opinion polls show the firestorm has not affected the mayor's standing with his core backers.
“It looks like the Ford Nation seems to be a pretty loyal group of supporters. Unless the issue deals directly with the performance of his duties, these things don't seem to impact his popularity,” Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff said in an interview with the Toronto Star.
“Rob Ford is really both the Teflon and Kevlar mayor - nothing sticks to him and nothing penetrates his armour.”
Writing in a Toronto Star editorial on Friday, communication consultant Gerry Nicholls explained Ford's success by his ability to tap into an an “Us” versus “Them” mentality.
“From the Ford Nation's perspective, 'Us' are hard-working, middle class, suburbanites, while 'Them' are downtown elites, special interest groups, the media and public sector union bosses,” Nicholls wrote. - Sapa-dpa