In all its awfulness, the first candidates’ debate on Wednesday summed up the state of civic politics nicely: What is it but people shouting at each other? The difference this time was that they were all in a room with cameras.

Despite much talk about winners and losers, the event was a farce, a meaningless exercise staged to maximize spectacle and minimize substance. For Citytv, which organized the event, it was a fiasco; for host Gord Martineau, a personal embarrassment.

Everything about it was shabby and appalling. It was nasty, brutish and amateurish, and reflected terribly on Toronto. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel picked up on that immediately and subtly expanded the Rob Ford saga into a City of Toronto epic.

Through Ford’s challengers, we are now all implicated. If this is the best we can do, then perhaps there’s a context in which Ford makes sense, a way to explain his grip on the mayoralty. In any case, they’re not just laughing at Rob Ford any more, it’s the rest of us, too.

It’s not hard to understand what Kimmel was getting at, from Ford’s transparent lies to Karen Stintz’s forced compassion. The conversation among the big five made everyone look bad. Some came out worse than others, but none of Ford’s opponents managed to out-bluster an incumbent whose shamelessness makes him unassailable. To take him on his own terms would mean descending to the shamelessness that allows him to get away with being a drunken lout as well as an acknowledged liar.

That would be left to the media.

Beset by political correctness, the need to be loved and the fear of offending, Ford’s rivals would rather stick to the issues — transit, housing and the like. But in this election there is only one issue — Rob Ford — and refusing to deal with that allows him to resort to the monosyllabic nonsense that has taken him all the way to the top.

Though there were occasional moments when candidates could speak uninterrupted, the debate was mostly cacophonous. Much more interesting was Citytv’s coverage of the “fringe” candidates, the 40-odd who run to be mayor with no hope of winning. But they paled in comparison to Rob Ford, the fringest of fringe candidates. Only Ford could brush off three years of scandal, grossness and stupidity with “Rewind, rewind, rewind.”

And yet, according to many viewers, Ford is still the guy. As perplexing as that may be, in the end it won’t be enough. One way or another, Ford’s many and varied failures will do him in. After all, it’s entirely conceivable he could be arrested before Oct. 27, when voting will take place.

In the meantime, Torontonians have to rescue the election from those who have turned it into a cheap reality series/game show where the winner takes all. Entertainment politics produced Ford, and depends on him now more than ever.

Ford has become a media and entertainment staple. He may be the worst mayor ever, but he’s also a fabulous celebrity oaf, always good for a laugh at his own expense, though not much of a debater.

Debates are slow and demand patience. Much easier just to turn the cameras on and let the five wanna-be mayors fight it out on stage.

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In that setting, Rob Ford will always win. He is the sound and the fury; hero, villain and comic relief all wrapped in one. What more could a city ask for?