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All of which is to say, people were watching that day. Lots of people. People paid specifically to know who’s who in city politics and what they’re doing. And yet, when Michael Ford strolled into the elections office that afternoon, everybody missed him. He got all the way to the counter and halfway through submitting his paperwork before anyone noticed he was there. Even when they did, he didn’t get the kind of attention other Fords get at city hall. A reporter asked him what he was registering for. “School board, ward 1,” he replied in his gentle, un-Fordian voice. And then he walked out, mostly unmolested.

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There are many possible reasons this all went down that way — it was a weird, confusing day for one — but the most likely one is this: at city hall no one really believed Mr. Ford had that much of a say in what happened, in the decision to pull himself out of Ward 2, or in the choice to set himself up in the school board race.

That’s just an assumption. No one outside the Fords knows for sure. But in the weeks since and, for that matter, the months before, Mr. Ford has done nothing to dissuade it. He has never spoken publicly about why he wants to be in politics. He has no published platform. He doesn’t have a website. There’s a debate in his ward Friday. He isn’t registered to go.

He also doesn’t speak to the media. Two weeks ago, he told another reporter from this paper he was just setting up his campaign and would be ready to talk in about a week. This week, after three days of going back and forth, he said he was too busy to talk. “Get back to me in a week or so,” he said via text message.