Until today it almost seemed that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford had managed to put most of his troubles behind him. Like it or not, there is a real Ford nation. The mayor of Canada’s current biggest city speaks in a voice that more than a few of we-the-people who usually feel left out of public life identify with.

In a city as resolutely multicultural as early 21st century Toronto, more than a few of those who identify with Mayor Ford are also non-anglo and non-white. (None of his friends in the famous alleged crackhouse image, that police chief Bill Blair has now revived, could exactly be called anglo or white – and the gentleman to the mayor’s right is clearly black.)

The anti-government-spending rhetoric that Mayor Ford noisily espouses (but has perhaps not followed all that rigorously?) may not be in the most objective economic interests of many Ford nationalists. But if you have any strong belief in democracy, you cannot quite write Rob Ford off as just another narrow-minded right-wing lunatic, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. (Even if much of this characterization still does seem to make a lot of sense – though in this case it should maybe be called a copper spoon.)

So … I was surprised to wake up this morning and see Peter Jacobsen explaining just-released police documents with some freshly troubling implications for Mayor Ford on cp24 TV. At 11:30 AM ET, I was even more surprised to find Toronto police chief Bill Blair announcing that his officers had recently discovered a copy of what can only be the alleged crackhouse video which the Gawker website gave up on trying to buy this past July. (And up to now : “The mayor has denied any such video exists and dismissed” reports to the contrary as “ridiculous.”)

To be altogether exact, I suppose, there was a sign that Mayor Ford’s star may be falling as  long ago as yesterday. To quote cp24 : “A Forum Research poll released Wednesday puts Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s approval rating at 39 per cent — down 10 points from last month … Moreover, 61 per cent of those surveyed disapprove of the job Ford is doing in his role as mayor, while 39 per cent describe him as ‘one of Toronto’s worst mayors’ and another 15 per cent describe him as a ‘poor mayor’ … Asked whether they believe Ford’s frequently made claim that he has saved the city some $1 billion since taking office, 52 per cent said they do not believe the mayor.”

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford speaks to the large crowd of media outside his office at Toronto City Hall after Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair announced he has possession of the video allegedly showing the mayor smoking crack cocaine on Thursday, October 31, 2013. Michelle Siu for National Post.

As a trained political cynic, I would confess to some superficially rational suspicions about the temporal proximity of all three recent pieces of intelligence from the front lines here – the poll, the police documents, and Chief Blair’s report on the discovery of the video. But in the end I don’t even want to go there myself.

For the moment the latest key news I’ve heard on TV is that Mayor Ford would like to comment on all this – but feels he cannot because the case to which it all relates is before the courts (etc, etc). Meanwhile, he sees no reason that he should resign, and has no intention of doing so.

Who really knows what’s next? If these latest developments do not prove altogether damaging, Rob Ford will run for a second term as mayor of Canada’s current biggest city next year, on October 27, 2014. And Toronto is crazy enough these days that he just might win again!