It was a tough crowd at a recent debate at Oakwood Collegiate, with insults flying furiously at mayoral frontrunners, Rob Ford and George Smitherman. Folks around here are understandably raw over the havoc wreaked on their neighbourhood during five years of construction for the dedicated St. Clair W. streetcar line. People kept referring to “our dying St. Clair.”

It was sentiment enough to sour any room, but there was irony in the heckling of these top two, given that neither supported the TTC right-of-way at city council. Meanwhile, the only candidate who did — Councillor Joe Pantalone, already a deputy mayor when the project passed in 2004 — appeared to get kid-glove treatment at Oakwood, maybe because his campaign never really took off. What was the point?

When the right-of-way vote was taken on Oct. 29, 2004, Smitherman wasn’t even at city hall. He was the MPP for Toronto Centre-Rosedale and Liberal health minister by then, his municipal experience limited to working for Barbara Hall as chief of staff while she was mayor, and campaign manager. Etobicoke North councillor Ford was already four years into a decade of service at city hall.

“I’ll tell you, fiascoes like St. Clair won’t happen on my watch,” Ford thundered from the podium in the gym at Oakwood Collegiate, to robust applause. What he neglected to mention was that city hall minutes show he didn’t actually vote on the St. Clair motion when it passed, 36-7, with no abstentions.

An unwelcoming atmosphere among the good people of St. Clair W. seemed to reflect the mood of our city these days. Sure, there are passionate supporters for both Smitherman and Ford, in a race that polls show has settled into a statistical dead heat among the frontrunners.

Still, interviews with campaign workers, departing city councillors, academics, political strategists and voters left a curious sense of ennui. The Star talked to Smitherman at length, while Ford declined to be interviewed, as did his campaign staffers.

Retiring councillor Brian Ashton summed up: “When I talk to people, they tell me, yes, yes, they want change, to shake up city hall. But when you push them about their choice, a lot tell me they’re going to have to hold their noses to vote. They don’t like either of the top choices.

“They tell me, “I know Rob’s a bit of a buffoon . . . but Slitherman?’ ”

Well, fellow Torontonians, depressed or not, you’re almost certainly going to wake up in a city with either Smitherman or Ford as Hizzoner-to-be. Let us help you try to figure them out.

ROB FORD

Hometown: An Etobicoke boy heart and soul, Ford, 41, played high school football and stuck close to his west-end stomping grounds, except for three years of political science at Carleton University. He dropped out near the end of his final year to help his then-troubled sister, Kathy. A councillor since 2000, he’s also chief financial officer of Deco Labels & Tags, co-founded by his late father, Douglas, and now a multi-million-dollar concern.

Physique/appearance: Big. He’s no more than 5-foot-10 and 285 pounds, but he walks heavy, shoulders hunched, neck retracted. He’s built like a tank, appropriate for a former offensive centre for Carleton’s football team, the Ravens. Prefers open-necked shirts, no tie and jacket.

Best campaign assets: Friends report being “amazed” at his energy. “He has tremendous physical stamina,” says Case Ootes, in his last days on council. His has been the campaign to beat, agree political watchers. “Rob has completely focused on protecting taxpayers’ dollars. He’s almost religious about it,” says ideologically matched Ootes. Liberal consultant Rob Silver sees “a completely disciplined” candidate with a simple, consistent message: “You’ve got to tip your hat to someone who can run a campaign like that.” Ford’s line about putting a stop to the “gravy train” must be burned into our collective subconscious.

Family: “I’m a family man,” he says repeatedly, almost turning it into a riff on being husband to his lovely wife, Renata, and father to their two beautiful children, Stephanie and Douglas. It’s a dig, mutter Smitherman’s strongest loyalists; it’s a subliminal message about Smitherman being gay. “Ridiculous,” responds Ootes, Ford’s longtime desk mate. “He’s blunt and doesn’t worry about sounding politically correct, and he can be misinterpreted. I know Rob well: he is not homophobic, anti-immigrant or any of those things they say about him.”

A tough life experience: Of the four kids of Doug Sr. and Diane (along with Kathy, Doug Jr. and Randy) he looks most like his dad. Doug Sr.’s framed photo sits in his Deco office and he still struggles with his father’s death from colon cancer in 2006. From telling his family to dying took less than three months. “What did he ever do to anyone?” he asked me, during an April interview. “It was so sad to see someone who helped out so many people — he donated millions to the poorest of the poor — have to suffer and die like that. He was just gasping at the end. If you’ve ever heard a death rattle, it’s a ghastly affair.” His voice was shaking. “Oh man. It’s rough. Terrible. It makes me upset when I think about it.”

Biggest misconception by others: Neverland supporters of John Tory figured — as late as July — that all they had to do was get former premier Mike Harris to hop on down to Ford’s HQ and convince him to drop out in favour of their reluctant candidate. Theory was he’d do it because Harris had been his MPP father’s boss at Queen’s Park. Not.

The slur that sticks? In Ford’s case, this might better go under the next category.

Anger management: Ford’s bad moments appear worsened by anger. “Go ahead and take me to jail,” he told an officer, according to an arrest report from10 years ago, after being stopped in Florida and charged with driving under the influence. He pleaded no contest and faced a fine and 50 hours community service. It’s hard to think of an instance when a decade-old mug shot of a political candidate runs on front pages of the local papers, mid-campaign. Still, his poll numbers went up, to the bewilderment of opponents.

There have been other incidents. In 2008, prosecutors charged him with assault after an incident with his wife in their Etobicoke home. The charge was withdrawn. “Nothing happened. My wife got mad at me. She made an allegation that wasn’t true and the charges never even got to court,” he said, during the April interview. “I’ve never laid a hand on a woman in my life. Rule No. 1 in the Ford family: You never touch a woman.”

Unwelcome campaign news: Under the headline, “Ford landslide looms,” the Star reported Sept. 20 on a Nanos Research survey that gave Ford a 24-point lead over Smitherman. It was the last thing any campaign wants to see with a month to go. Too much time to slide. Supporters think the battle is over; opponents galvanize. Soon after, Sarah Thomson dropped out, throwing her support to Smitherman, and Rocco Rossi withdrew. Although he stayed neutral, recent polling suggests the “anybody-but-Ford campaign” has gained strength to become today’s dead heat.

Questionable campaign judgment: In the final stretch, Maclean’s released a cover that blared, “The political genius (?!) of Rob Ford.” Ouch. Ford’s whole brand said populist underdog and next-door neighbour, and here’s this story touting Ford and his spectacular machine under his campaign manager, brother Doug. This could fall into the “we had no control category,” but any political strategist worth their salt walks on fire to hold back the accolades until after the win.

It seems apparent the campaign team is fighting back. Strategist Earl Provost, who heads Ford’s election-day team, burbled to the Globe recently about Smitherman’s “amazing ground game.” The story says he’s “a little bit in awe” of the Smitherman campaign. Oh no, no, no, no. This is damage control. Provost’s trying to instill panic in the troops. Dream on: Sure, councillors are going to eliminate half of their numbers, from 44 to 22. They don’t even have the proper mechanism to do it, argue advocates of the rules.

Good deeds: Ford volunteers as senior and junior football coach at Don Boscoe Catholic High School in Etobicoke and has put in time with other teams. One has to admire any politician who’s made 10,000 home visits during 10 years. Here’s a genuinely interested guy, actually cares about issues like bedbugs.

Biggest obstacle: “If he wins, it’s going to be a really slow learning curve,” says retiring councillor Howard Moscoe. “He hasn’t been a very conscientious member of council, doesn’t read the agenda, doesn’t understand the issues.”

Verbal idiosyncrasy: Tends to burst out laughing when caught off-guard. Nervous laughter has made for awkward moments.

Favorite place: Evidence suggests it may be at the wheel of his car.

Favorite food: Eschews taxpayer-funded sandwiches at City Hall, brings his own half- or quarter-chicken.

Big Mo: So who has the momentum? It’s probably not a good sign for Ford that advance polling was up by 82 per cent. While it’s nice to think people rushed out to vote for someone (as with Obama), it’s more likely they were voting against. In Ford’s favour, recent polls suggest his support is firmer, with Nanos saying 76 per cent of Ford’s voters say they won’t change, compared with 69 per cent for Smitherman. Moreover, despite Provost’s warning, Ford’s get-out-the-vote team is solid, according to observers.

However, momentum seemed to prefer Smitherman in the stretch. O, fickle momentum.

GEORGE SMITHERMAN

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Hometown: “I’m a son of Toronto,” the candidate, 46, likes to say, with the variation that he’s the “son of a truck driver.” A brief stay in the east end and he turned into a west-end boy, growing up in Etobicoke, where his father, Art, expanded Smitty’s Haulage into Sure-Way Transport, backed by his mother Margaret (known as Irene) and her mother, who actually worked for the company.

Physique/appearance: Built like a bullet, with bald head and freckles. About 5-foot-10 and 230 pounds, but suffering from campaign junk food blues, gaining slightly, after having dropped 30 to 40 pounds last year. Puts thought into wardrobe, showing flair, with good suits and the casual comfort of beaded moccasins, sweats and purple sneakers (that look like deck shoes). Nice ties. “I like his ties,” Ford said, when asked by Steve Paikin, of TVO’s The Agenda, to name a Smitherman attribute he admired.

Best campaign assets: Speed, energy. Never walk when you can run. “He runs himself ragged, he’s been tireless in this campaign,” says consultant Rob Silver, a former Liberal staffer in the premier’s office. A last glimpse of Smitherman on any recent afternoon shows him whipping around a corner, purple shoes flashing, campaign volunteers struggling to keep up. He’s a serious runner and tennis player. Smitherman sums up his approach: “I have energy, passion, intellect and the desire to lead our city forward.”

Family: Art Smitherman took his confident, curious kid everywhere and, as a result, he’s comfortable with anyone. The gift of the gab. He has three siblings and got along well with stepfather Darcy Kelley after his parents’ divorce. Life revolves around a downtown condo with his husband of nearly three years, Christopher Peloso, and their adopted son, Michael, 2. He told his parents and stepfather separately he was gay, while a Liberal aide at Queen’s Park and owner of a little Church St. business. Eschewed university. “My dad held out heterosexual hope,” he once told me. “Well, I said, ‘Don’t hold your breath.’”

He lauds the “sense of joy that has come to my life with the stability of our marriage, and most of all the adoption of Michael . . . amazing!”

A tough life experience: “Getting off drugs,” he says, of a stretch in the 1990s when he says he was “addicted” to what he’s called “party drugs.” Of that time, he says: “I didn’t go to rehab, but it was a combination of personal strength, the support of people that love me and medical professionals. That was a challenging time in my life.” The drugs and drinking came after the death of his father from kidney failure, a tortured experience for both, with his dad paralyzed and able only to blink for months before he died.

Biggest misconception by others: “Oh, come on,” says a startled homeowner in East York’s Parkview Hills, when Smitherman suggests he couldn’t afford to buy one of the area’s brick homes. The candidate was admiring the magnificent European ash in the man’s yard. People must think all politicians are rich. “It’s not true,” says Smitherman, explaining that his Queen’s Park pension is modest — meager compared to federal allowances — and he and Peloso share their condo. A friend says he once admitted to wishing he’d started saving early.

The slur that sticks? He’s “the $1 billion man,” the health minister who presided over out-of-control spending and single-bid contracts at eHealth and other provincial efforts to computerize health records. Not fair, he tells the Oakwood crowd, insisting he was one of four ministers over 10 years (two Liberal and two Conservative) and that the auditor said the money didn’t go far enough, not that a billion was lost. “But I accept responsibility for my part of it,” he insists.

Anger management: Yup, the b-word (bully) stuck to Smitherman as boss at Queen’s Park, and he’s not called “Furious George” for nothing. He’s described as being driven and having a short fuse. He simmered through an hour of heckling at Oakwood Collegiate, before observing with some petulance: “You can boo and hiss all you like. You’ve been doing it all night. But I have to leave.”

Flip side: “I wouldn’t say he’s a bully, I’d say he’s demanding,” says one strategist. “I don’t know if I’d want him coming in as my boss tomorrow morning, but he’s tough, and he doesn’t ask anyone else to do what he’s not prepared to do himself.” Another verdict: He’s emotional, wears his heart on his sleeve, and loyalists love him.

Unwelcome campaign news: Smitherman was the early frontrunner, with a Toronto Star-Angus Reid poll in January putting him at 44 per cent of decided voters, with his nearest rival, doomed Adam Giambrone, at 17 per cent. He made himself a tough act to follow.

Questionable campaign judgment: Smitherman brought in Justin Trudeau with much fanfare on a recent Monday night. Councillor Brian Ashton isn’t alone in asking if the guy knows where he’s running. “Don’t keep trying to prove you know important people,” he says, adding that Trudeau means little to Torontonians in an election and the invite could be interpreted as evidence the “son of Toronto” is obsessed with national ambition.

Rob Silver offers an astute counter. He suggests the appearance of Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s son had less to do with the general public and more with signing up volunteers for the last weekend and getting-out-the-vote Monday. “As far as I know, they got a huge number of people,” says Silver.

Dream on: Sure, he’s going to do a line-by-line examination of the city’s finances before April’s final budget approval, even as he decides on nominees for top positions, cultivates support on council and improves morale, cleans up neighbourhoods, revolutionizes the city’s customer service and sends municipal employees to work “with a bounce in their step.” Good deeds: Apparently, it’s the little things. “There have been some issues with my wife’s health,” says Smitherman fundraiser Ralph Lean. “He always takes the time to ask, ‘How’s Marcelle?’ He wants to know what he can do, and that always gets me.” Smitherman sloughs it off: “It’s what my mother and grandmother taught me.” Volunteers teaching kids to skate, among other projects.

Biggest obstacle: Opponents describe a dilettante who piles too much on his plate. Political junkie Judy Rebick says she doesn’t trust him because she thinks he’s drifted to the right after Ford’s popularity surged, and a drifting mayor could be problematic. Others insist he has a solid record as a politician who knows his mind.

Verbal idiosyncrasy: “Awww,” says Smitherman. “Awww.” He sticks it at the end of words to stall for time. Hear it once, you’ll always hear it.

Favorite recent diversions: Nuit Blanche and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

Favorite food: Anything in his preferred fish/vegetable diet, no yeast, no meat.

Big Mo: Voter turnout is key, of course. But Smitherman will win if Pantalone’s supporters rush to stop Ford — which explains Smitherman’s new mantra: “A vote for Joe Pantalone is a vote for Rob Ford.”