TORONTO

What Toronto needs right now isn’t a confrontational and abrasive rookie politician for mayor who lacks not only tact and diplomacy, but the political smarts borne of experience.

Until 24 hours ago, Doug Ford was on his way out of municipal politics by choice, managing the campaign of his younger brother, Rob, as a last hurrah after four years spent on council in the mayor’s old ward in Etobicoke.

But it was one thing for Doug Ford to replace his brother as a councillor in 2010. It’s quite another to replace him as mayor in 2014.

Love him or hate him, Rob Ford earned his political spurs before coming from behind to beat early frontrunner and former Liberal cabinet minister George Smitherman in the 2010 mayoral race.

He’d been a councillor for 10 years and, while pretty much of a lone wolf, gained a reputation for helping constituents, even from other city wards, when their own councillors wouldn’t help them.

That, combined with his motto of ending the “gravy train” at City Hall and “respect for taxpayers,” was a formidable message to voters in 2010, tired of arrogant politicians paying for their own retirement parties and funding a climate change office with their tax money in London, England.

The point is Rob Ford put in the time and effort and won the mayor’s race fair and square. He had a genuine knack for retail politics, earned during his years at City Hall.

Doug didn’t — he came in on his younger brother’s coattails in his brother’s old ward in 2010, as anyone could have done as long as they had Rob Ford’s endorsement.

Indeed, what’s amazing is that Rob Ford’s brand with voters remains so strong today.

This even after his globally known drug and alcohol problems and countless political controversies.

So strong that Rob Ford was running a credible second to John Tory in the mayor’s race, before being felled by health problems and forced to withdraw Friday, in favour of running for his old council seat again.

By contrast, Doug Ford’s brand was that he’s the mayor’s brother, one he took advantage of at City Hall by constantly talking about issues over the past four years as if he was the co-mayor of Toronto, along with his brother.

He wasn’t. He never was.

He was a rookie councillor who made rookie mistakes, culminating most famously in his calling out Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair for daring to say police had obtained a copy of the infamous video showing his brother appearing to smoke crack, just hours before Rob Ford admitted he had, in fact, smoked crack.

Should Doug Ford become mayor, the paralysis at City Hall will be even worse than if Rob Ford had managed to get re-elected.

The city’s relations with Queen’s Park (given Doug Ford’s constant musings about running for the provincial Tories) will be even more of a train wreck.

Four more years of political paralysis is not what Toronto needs right now.

It’s understandable Doug Ford wants to carry his younger brother’s legacy and message of fiscal discipline and restraint forward at City Hall.

He’s a smart businessman who heads the Ford family’s very successful Deco Labels firm, and in doing such things as donating his council salary to charity, he showed a generosity of spirit that other councillors who always want to be generous with other people’s money, could learn from.

And of course every decent human being joins with Doug Ford in hoping his younger brother overcomes his health crisis.

But mayor of Toronto? No. Doug Ford hasn’t earned it.