“Shake and shimmy, boy,” the woman said as David Soknacki stiffly stepped and clapped off-rhythm at Salsa on St. Clair in July.

As Labour Day looms, the silver-haired anti-Ford, with the policy-rich and social media-savvy mayoral campaign, is still badly in need of some flow — or a rival to fall down — or both.

The ex-budget chief, who left city hall eight years ago to return full-time to his successful flavour additives business, has financed his innovative comeback by putting a small fortune on a personal line of credit.

“I wish it was only $100,000 — it’s much, much more than $100,000,” the millionaire says of his campaign self-financing after a reporter uses that figure as an example. He won’t say how much more but acknowledges donations from others so far total less than $100,000.

Political donors often give some money at the start of a campaign to candidates they like, then wait until they see who can actually win before opening their wallets again.

“We’ve been to a number of donors and they’ve said, ‘We’re not going to give anything now, come back closer to Labour Day,’” he says. “Our intent is to pull on those strings and say ‘We’re here, we’re viable.’”

Opinion polls suggest radio host/politico John Tory has taken the lead from former NDP MPP Olivia Chow, as both prepare to launch pricey advertising blitzes in the home-stretch to the Oct. 27 civic election.

Given that his support in polls has fluctuated between 2 and 6 per cent since January, and that he and fellow back-of-the-packer Councillor Karen Stintz are right-leaning centrists like Tory, why would donors now hand Soknacki the cash he needs to boost his name recognition?

“Ummmmmmmm,” he replies. “Can I ask the question a different way? We recognized at the beginning it was going to be a long shot and funds would be tight; we also believed very passionately in being the campaign of ideas and putting things into the public discourse.”

In that, he has won. While some observers complain Tory and Chow have, to date, given voters little to grab, the Soknacki campaign is bursting with detailed planks on transit (revert Scarborough subway plan to cheaper light-rail line), gridlock (ban all on-street parking in downtown core), the land transfer tax (reform to give low and middle-income home buyers a break) and more.

After Soknacki, 59, called for the TTC to speed up streetcar service by letting riders with passes enter the back doors, TTC chief executive Andy Byford announced he wants to implement the honour system Jan. 1, years ahead of schedule.

And when Police Chief Bill Blair’s contract nonrenewal shone a light on the ballooning $1.08 billion police budget, Soknacki jumped on the thorny topic, vowing to put himself on the police services board and find $65 million in savings. Chow later waded in.

His earnest nerdiness was transformed into an asset by online videos and memes, some riffing on Soknacki’s blandness compared to Mayor Rob FordRob Ford (“Never heard of me? Neither has 52 Division”). They will continue even though the campaign rebranded itself with a more serious tone.

But, beyond the city hall obsessives on Twitter, who cares?

The reality is that third-place Ford and his councillor brother are gobbling up what political oxygen is not consumed by Chow and Tory, leaving Soknacki and Stintz gasping for attention.

Back in February, Soknacki’s team was furious when his land-transfer announcement was upstaged by magician David Blaine’s visit to the mayor’s office. They had to hustle Soknacki up to buttonhole reporters waiting for a magic man who never appeared.

A dozen reporters were at Soknacki’s Aug. 6 police budget presser but others were across the street at budget committee featuring the highly quotable, often inaccurate Councillor Doug Ford.

“We weren’t competing with the budget committee,” says a clearly frustrated Brian Kelcey, Soknacki’s campaign manager. “We were competing with Doug Ford. It should be clear to any observer that the city hall press gallery is now the Rob and Doug Ford press gallery.”

It happened again when the Fords disclosed, for no apparent reason, emailed threats against them while Soknacki released his homelessness, social housing and affordable housing strategy.

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Soknacki hopes that, as voters start to get more engaged, he will break from the back. More people are recognizing him at public events, he says. Also, his core support is surprisingly left-leaning, fuelling hopes he’ll pick up erstwhile Chow fans, and 40 new volunteers have joined in the past two weeks alone.

But, when asked what else besides good policy could change his fortunes, there is another long “Ummmm.”

There is a rough template, drawn from the come-from-behind mayoral wins of David Miller in 2003 and Calgary’s Naheed Nenshi in 2010.

Soknacki does not appear to have the political charisma of those men, and his long-winded explanations are a far cry of the “Stop the Gravy Train” mantra that helped Ford muscle past challengers in 2010.

“Yes I could be crisper,” admits the former Scarborough councillor. “It’s of course a challenge for the campaign ... When you’re talking a billion (dollars) on the police budget, it doesn’t resolve itself to 6 words.”

Jonathan Scott, a volunteer on Soknacki’s campaign, says: “If there was to be even a modest uptick for him and they start to write the ‘dark horse’ stories, that’s a powerful narrative.

“If the police budget (issue) was what the island airport was in ’03 …”

But the clock is ticking. Kelcey predicts the campaign, which has six paid staffers, can raise $650,000 to $700,000. Soknacki does not hope to match the spending of Chow or Tory but admits that “to win you need a pile of money.”

At the moment, he is risking a pile of his own money to elevate this mayoral campaign, to force the front-runners to be better candidates.

The inevitable question is “Will you drop out if your support does not grow?” The shrewd, inherently dishonest answer most politicians would give, keeping in mind potential donors, is “No, absolutely not” — until the moment they drop out.

But that’s not Soknacki. “Brian and I, on a monthly basis, look at the existential question ‘Do we continue running or not? ...,” he says.

And if the polls don’t change, the money doesn’t come? “That’s another one of those existential question that we’ll have to be asking.”

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