Canada PM poses for pictures with Rob Ford ahead of election

Former Toronto city councillor Doug Ford warmed up the crowd for Mr. Harper, boasting of how his brother, Rob, was door knocking and converting voters to the Tories in this campaign.

A few of Ford Nation showed up Saturday night to support Stephen Harper at his final evening rally in Toronto Saturday, but it isn’t the crowds that may be the most enduring image of the night for the 2015 Conservative campaign.

Ford gained global notoriety in 2013 after admitting he used crack and cocaine while in office he denied for months prior to his surprise confession.

It also didn’t help that around the time the rally was announced, Maclean’s magazine ran an explosive excerpt from the upcoming tell-all book by Rob Ford’s former chief of staff Mark Towhey.

Harper thanked the Ford brothers and other organizers but was not seen shaking hands with either, and has not directly answered questions about why his campaign is associated with the Fords.

They talk bleakly about entire swaths of Ontario returning to the Liberals, and that antipathy towards Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and the public’s desire for change has been hard to rebut.

Posing as an ardent Conservative supporter, Dunbar had already tricked Ford into posing for a picture with him a year ago as he held up a sign bearing the word “folks”. Ford was joined by his brother Doug Ford, a former Toronto councilman.

The last tweet on the prime minister’s account was a thank-you to an anti-drug community group.

After Harper’s speech was finished, the Guardian spoke to the attendees.

Doug Ford was the warm-up performer for Harper, a role usually handed to a local candidate as Harper tours the country.

Doug Ford later told reporters the event was organized by the Conservative Party, not by him, but that the Fords just brought their family and friends. “He’s been a great prime minister”. “We stick with our core beliefs, we don’t waver, we were standing by the Conservatives for the past 55 years with our family, and we are still standing beside the Conservative party”.

“I’ve always said that Justin Trudeau deserves to be judged on his own merits”, said Harper.

Notably, Maggi said that in Quebec, outside of Montreal and Quebec City, there’s a tight four-way race for dozens of seats and that the result could have a major impact on the number of Liberal ridings in the election. “It would be an absolute disaster if Justin Trudeau and Kathleen Wynne were running this country”.

In the second of two snippets posted on Politico.com under the collective headline “The Mayor Is A F–ing Addict!”, Towhey recounts how he instituted an office “policy” after one co-worker in the mayor’s office watched Ford chug a 12-oz. bottle of vodka behind the wheel one day whilst giving him a lift in his infamous black Escalade: “No staffers were permitted to be in a vehicle operated by the mayor”.

“The party needs to prepare for all outcomes, including if the leader is no longer the leader on Monday”, said another influential Conservative.

Senior Conservative politicians and campaign workers are bracing for electoral defeat on Monday and the ensuing party turmoil, with A few activists beginning to take a closer look at the mechanics of a future leadership race. “He decorated the whole street blue”.