First Ford Nation conquered the Tories, next is Ontario

With little talk of policy, personality wins the day. But will it be enough?

Here’s how Ford Nation wins over a province.

By word and song. And (campaign) signs of the times.

At a Doug Ford rally, the leader is always late, leaving extra time for his populist anthem to penetrate your being. A throbbing earworm that burrows deep inside your consciousness.

The crowd is warmed up to overheating as the anthem choruses, “For the people! Hey!” The lyrics loop over and over: “For the people! Hey!”

Ford himself is now in the hall, making his way through Ford Nation. OPP bodyguards deploy in the cavernous airport conference centre as the leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives poses for smiling selfies with adoring supporters before taking the microphone.

“My friends, people across Ontario are coming together,” Ford proclaims in his deliberate delivery, a man in command of his audience — his friends.

Ford fires up the crowd with stirring rhetoric about hydro rip-offs, a promise to rip up Ontario’s sex education curriculum, a pledge to axe any carbon tax, and a vow to cut taxes for the people.

For Ford Nation, the words are music to the ear. Not to mention that earworm.

Amid the mesmerizing messaging, however, there are clues that this is not a traditional Progressive Conservative campaign rally. Listen closely, and look at the telltale signs, for this is emphatically a Doug Ford election event.

“It’s bigger than one party,” the leader stresses, repeating the phrase for emphasis. “This is about the people.”

The people, not the party. Another clue comes from the signage at the podium, which makes no mention of the Tories. Instead, a blue, red and white sign at the lectern says it all — all that needs to be said — in big bold letters: “Doug Ford for the people.”

And at this event, early in the campaign, the leader exults with Trump-like hyperbole over “the thousands of people here tonight.” Except there are not thousands of people (journalists count several hundred in the cavernous venue near Pearson airport).

That’s not to say Ford can’t draw a crowd — never mind that his campaign famously hired professional actors to cheer for him outside a television studio. Tonight’s audience is diverse, made up of young and old, white, brown and black, men and women, many drawn from the suburban belt of the GTA that Ford is counting on.

But beyond preaching to the converted, can he convince a broader coalition of voters on June 7 that he deserves to be premier?

In the campaign’s early days, Ford seemed content to coast to victory with his Conservative core. With a strong grip on most of rural Ontario, the Tories have a huge head start over the Liberals (largely confined to the urban and suburban areas), and the New Democrats (vying with the Tories for support in the southwest and north).

Many party loyalists — not just red Tories — may be uncomfortable with Ford’s disruptive approach. But his campaign is betting on an infusion of new blood from the Ford Nation coalition to exceed any attrition.

Which is why Ford is playing up Ford Nation across the province, while downplaying the PC party he leads. Internal polling shows him ahead of the brand, so he is personalizing his pitch.

With little talk of policy, personality wins the day — or more precisely, the Ford persona inherited from his late brother Rob. But beyond the safe space of a friendly Ford Nation campaign rally, there have been brief glimpses of a different Doug Ford in the campaign’s early days. As the campaign unfolds, more people may catch sight of Ford’s unscripted, untrammelled musings — like his nativist opposition last week to new immigrant workers in the north, where an audience of mayors and reeves groaned and laughed at his ignorance of their need for more foreigners amid declining populations.

For the moment, Ford looks formidable. The Progressive Conservatives have gone all in with Ford Nation, on the premise that Doug Ford is more popular than the party — because he is for the people.

If the people are behind him on June 7, the party will win big with a majority government landslide. But if the people tire of him, or turn against him, the party whose brand he banished will reap the whirlwind.