The Slow Collapse of the Doug Ford Campaign

Doug Ford is still trying to buy votes, and is now promising to sell beer and wine on every street corner.

No doubt to try to make people forget that he could be the Premier of Canada's most powerful province in less than three weeks.

And he still has a comfortable lead in the polls.

But that support is softening.





Now it's the NDP that has the momentum

And there are signs that the Ford campaign is slowly collapsing. 

The Team Harper operatives running his campaign are starting to panic, and are even muzzling some of their own candidates.

The growing number of Progressive Conservative candidates declining to participate in local debates is raising questions about whether the party is muzzling inexperienced and controversial members in a top-down attempt to control the campaign message. 

More than 20 PC candidates have skipped debates since the beginning of the provincial election campaign, a trend that recalls similar absenteeism among federal Conservative candidates under Stephen Harper.

While Ford himself is now even more of a bubble boy or bubble bubbah...



With the media being increasingly restricted from asking any questions, let alone any embarrassing ones.

And to make matters worse, he's being hammered by allegations that his PC party is rotten to the core with corruption. 

The rookie leader of Ontario's poll-leading Progressive Conservatives came under concerted attack on Saturday over allegations his candidates for next month's election might have used stolen data to further their cause.

The leaders of the Liberals and New Democrats called for the police and Elections Ontario to investigate the alleged data theft, while PC Leader Doug Ford dismissed the attack.

With his opponents suggesting he's preparing to steal the election, and calling for drastic action.

In a statement Saturday, Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne said the PCs should purge their database of any illegally obtained voter information connected the alleged Highway 407 data breach, fire all candidates linked to the alleged breach and invite Elections Ontario to investigate the allegations.

And if the bad news keeps coming it won't be long before they start calling him Doug Fraud.

So who knows how this story might end...



But one thing is for sure. 

With every passing day the stench of corruption is growing. 

Call it a swamp. Call it a gravy train. But this week, the Ford campaign is looking messier by the day.

There is plenty of reason for Ontarians to be alarmed at Ford’s track record, his lack of experience, his personal record of impulsivity, vulgarity and disruption.

What all Ontarians should be concerned about, however, is the increasing stench and apparent want of integrity surrounding PCs candidates and, by extension, their leader.

He has never looked less like a leader and more like an ape.

Never looked more vulnerable...



The next debate will almost certainly do him more damage.

And the third and final one could very well finish him off...