TORONTO

Count Mayor Hazel McCallion among the cynical when it comes to analyzing Toronto’s great Ford swap.

“That was a show,” the Mississauga chief magistrate said Saturday at the annual Great Ontario Salmon Derby in Port Credit. “That’s what that was.”

The 93 year old who is retiring after 36 years as mayor after the Oct. 27 election was referring to the last minute ballot switch for Toronto election.

First came word that ailing Mayor Rob Ford would come off the ballot for mayor and his nephew Michael would withdraw from running for councillor in Ward 2.

Then we were told Michael would run for school board and Mayor Ford would run in his old spot in ward 2 while current Ward 2 Councillor Doug Ford, who was not yet on a 2014 ballot, would put his name up for mayor.

You just don’t see that every day. But it’s democracy in action

McCallion admitted she was not amused with this kind of political jockeying.

“I talked to a lot of people at the new Streetsville Village Square opening who said to me ‘What a farce’,” she said, adding it reminds her of something she might see on a TV show.

But she has had her head-shaking moments, too.

She did show real compassion for Rob the person. “I feel so sorry for Rob, definitely, and I hope he is going to get better,” said Mayor McCallion. “But if Rob is sick, why don’t they (Fords) just stay out of it?”

McCallion does not feel Mayor Ford should run in Ward 2 if he’s ill and does not feel Doug Ford should step in to take his place in the mayor’s race.

“Doug is good but he should have run from the beginning instead of Rob,” she said. “But not at the last minute.“

My feeling on it is that, like all things Ford, it’s a complicated issue with no right or wrong answer. However it would not have been my first choice. I would have left Mayor Ford on the ballot and let him consider his future in the race without a looming deadline. There are weeks to vote day and others in the past have left their names on the ballot and still withdrawn.

There was no urgency for that. And Doug Ford could have sat it out and created his own legacy at some other time instead of jumping in as a Rob Ford surrogate.

But practically speaking who can really blame Doug Ford? Rob Ford has told me himself he is in no condition to run a mayoral campaign and if he faces major surgery could be out of commission for months.

After all the money and time Doug Ford has spent on this campaign, as well as bailing his brother out of mess after mess, you can hardly blame him for wanting to try to represent Ford Nation in this election.

It is a power grab but no less so than the equal ambitions of John Tory or Olivia Chow. It’s politics.

Doug Ford is entitled to do it, Mayor Ford asked him to do it and the first poll shows the new Ford in the race gained six points and at 34% is just seven points behind leader Tory.

So far it seems like a good political decision no matter what Hazel or the pundits think.

There were no rules violated and the voters will have a clear choice.

My own informal street polling came back with a mixed reaction. Many told me they think Doug Ford is going to run away with this election out of sympathy for Rob. But many others said the whole Ford trade in thing is just too slick for them.

Of course it’s no more offensive than Tory talking immediately about Doug Ford making the divisiveness in the campaign “worse” and that Doug has made unfortunate remarks about children with autism.

But like what Doug Ford did by getting himself in this race, it was politics and Tory has every right to use everything he can to try to win.

Remember he thought he was running against Rob Ford.

In retrospect I have to admit I was probably too strong in my original criticism of reporters asking Doug Ford the question of would he replace Rob on the ballot because it turned out to be the right question.

But those reporters were on to something there. Even though I ended up breaking the story that Doug would replace Rob on the ballot, I have to admit I was naïve enough to think Rob would get healthy and Doug would never try to replace him.

“Why does the media cover everything so much of the Ford family?” asked McCallion.

Perhaps it’s for the same reason she felt compelled to comment on it.