Toronto’s 2014 municipal election is underway. We’ll chronicle tidbits, oddities and absurdities in our Campaign Notebook.

WEBSITE WOES

Mayor Rob Ford’s campaign managed to commit a likely violation of election rules on Monday afternoon with a website that included a grand total of two sentences.

“Thank you for visiting the website,” the site, RobFordForMayor.ca, began under a red-white-blue “Ford For Mayor” logo. “If you would like to contact Mayor Ford please send your inquiry to Mayor_Ford@toronto.ca or 416-397-FORD (3673).”

That is Ford’s city email address, and that is the number for the mayor’s office. The city’s election rules are clear: candidates are not allowed to use city resources or facilities to support their campaigns. That includes email accounts, phone lines and city hall offices.

The Ford campaign fixed the problem by Monday night. The website now says: “Thank you for visiting the website. If you would like to contact Mayor Ford please call 416-233-6934.”

That is the mayor’s home number.

SOKNACKI GOES 'CRAZY'

Former councillor David Soknacki launched his mayoral campaign on Monday morning in studiously high-minded fashion. He spoke from a prepared statement; even after releasing an ethics-and-transparency pledge that offered an implicit criticism of Ford, he refused to take any real shots at the scandal-plagued mayor.

His website’s auto-reply message was more pointed.

Some people who signed up for Soknacki’s email updates received an automated response that read, “Thanks for your interest in David Soknacki’s campaign to ‘stop the crazy train’ and bring politically courageous, experienced and professional leadership to city hall.”

Other people got a blander auto-reply that omitted the “crazy train” line. The campaign, spokeswoman Supriya Dwivedi said, is testing out various web messages to see which prove most successful in luring visitors, donors and volunteers.

“In case you were wondering,” she said in an email, “the ‘stop the crazy train’ is proving to be quite popular.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Ford’s 2010 campaign refrain was “stop the gravy train.” Dwivedi argued that the Soknacki campaign is not calling Ford himself crazy.

“It’s not referring to Ford,” she said. “It’s first and foremost a play on gravy train. The ‘crazy’ train refers to the general ‘craziness’ at city hall in terms of media circus, when all the international media was parked outside and the dysfunction at council.”