TORONTO

The man behind Mayor Rob Ford's winning 2010 campaign is poised to work against him this year.

Nick Kouvalis will be working for John Tory's mayoralty campaign if the radio host and former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader decides to run, a source told the Sun.

According to the source, Kouvalis believes Tory's campaign requires a "big tent of Liberals and Tories" like the team that was built in B.C. for the Christy Clark campaign - Kouvalis worked on Clark's 2013 provincial campaign.

Kouvalis helped Ford sweep into the mayor's office in 2010 and served as his chief of staff for the first few months of his term.

In November 2010, Kouvalis revealed part of the Ford campaign's winning strategy included an aggressive plan to keep Tory out of the mayor's race. That campaign included a YouTube cartoon showing Tory as a superhero sidekick unable to stop "the Gravy Train," an on-air interview where a Ford campaign spokesman said that if Tory became mayor there'd be publicly funded religious schools across the city and a fake caller into Tory's own radio show questioning his integrity.

The source told the Sun that Kouvalis now believes Ford won't be able to get anything done at council "because he has no plan, no goodwill and therefore no votes to actually get things done."

Reached for comment on Wednesday, Kouvalis would only confirm that he believes Tory - who lost the 2003 mayor's race to David Miller - can win the 2014 election.

"John Tory can win this election because he is fiscally conservative, can get support for his plans and get the votes through council," Kouvalis said.