Rob Ford wants to frame the mayoral election as a referendum on his fiscal management. And he doesn’t want to talk about his conduct.

As he had promised, Ford was the first candidate to register for the 2014 race. Immediately after he filed his nomination papers at city hall Thursday morning, he revealed his early communications strategy: a relentless focus on money matters, a refusal to address questions about his behaviour while in office.

“I’ve got the strongest track record. I’ve been the best mayor that this city’s ever had. My record speaks for itself,” he told reporters at city hall.

Asked what he will tell parents who approach him on the campaign trail with questions about crack cocaine use and associations with criminals, he responded: “You want to get personal? I’m sticking to my record. That’s all personal.”

Ford’s message discipline helped propel him to victory in 2010 as an indignant outsider demanding change. This time, he is a scandal-plagued incumbent defending the status quo.

He argued that the city is “better now than it was four years ago.” He demurred when asked what he would do differently in a second term.

“I’m going to continue doing what I’ve been doing — watching every dime that’s being spent,” he said. He said later: “Promises made were promises kept.”

Election Day is October 27, 10 months away. The marathon campaign will likely operate at a low level of intensity for more than a month, maybe more than two: Ford’s foremost potential challengers, NDP MP Olivia Chow on the left and former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory on the right, will not enter the race immediately.

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The only credible declared challengers are councillor and TTC chair Karen Stintz and businessman and former councillor David Soknacki, who are both right-leaning. Neither registered on Thursday. Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, another conservative, is also considering a run.

Both Stintz and Minnan-Wong signalled that they will not hesitate to challenge Ford, who is still under police investigation, over his crack scandal and his related dishonesty.

“Character, integrity, and trust will and should be part of the mayoralty campaign,” Minnan-Wong said in an interview.

“In my view, the mayoralty campaign should be based on issues,” he said. “But it will also, and must fundamentally, be about character.”

Stintz repeated her criticism of Ford’s handling of last week’s ice storm. She argued that the city’s response was hampered by the absence of a mayor with traditional powers; council, she said, was compelled to limit Ford’s authority in November because of his actions.

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“We had a mayor who had admitted to smoking crack cocaine, to driving drunk, to not participating with a police investigation,” she said on CP24. “And so council was at a point where we had a mayor where we said, you know, ‘What kind of moral authority do you have to lead our city?’”

Thursday was the first day of the campaign period. Ford filed as soon as city hall’s elections office opened for business at 8:30 a.m.

Ford’s slogans in 2010 were “respect for taxpayers” and later “stop the gravy train.” His slogan this time is “Ford more years.”

At city hall and in interviews on talk radio, Ford rattled off a list of accomplishments: the elimination of the vehicle registration tax, widely-hailed deals with the municipal unions, a council-approved subway to replace the Scarborough RT.

He also made five false claims. He said he has council’s best attendance record, though he is worse than two-thirds of his colleagues; he said he has achieved tax increases lower than 1.75 per cent for four years, though the increase was 2.5 per cent in 2012 and 2 per cent in 2013; he said the unemployment rate dropped from 11 per cent when he took office to 7 per cent today, though it actually jumped from 9.4 per cent then to 9.8 per cent as of October.

He claimed the city “started spending like drunken sailors” after council stripped his powers in November, though there is no evidence that the proposed 2014 budget had changed at all.

And he said again that he has saved the city “a billion dollars,” a claim that relies on dubious math, exaggerations and omissions.

Councillor Doug Ford will be his brother’s campaign manager. Rob Ford refused to identify any other members of the campaign team.

His early entry allows him to begin raising and spending money. Stripped of most of his powers, he will have ample time to campaign. By staying out of the race for now, conversely, Chow and Tory will be able to remain in the public eye without facing direct fire. Chow plans to embark on a tour to promote her memoir; Tory hosts a talk radio show.

Fourteen fringe candidates had registered to run against Ford by the end of the day. They included Matt Mernagh, the marijuana activist, and Richard Underhill, the musician whose band The Shuffle Demons had a TTC-related hit, “Spadina Bus.”

Ford’s trip to the elections office was far more sedate than his theatrical appearance in 2010, when he was accompanied by a group of noisy supporters wearing “Team Ford” t-shirts. This time, he was joined only by his brother, his chief of staff, his driver and his spokesman.