In case you have been living under a rock, Toronto is in the middle of a municipal election. Currently Councillor Rob Ford is leading the polls (as he has been for most of the race). It seems every week new allegations surface in order to try and knock him down a few knotches.

In a nutshell, here’s just a sampling of the criticism about Ford:

• He’s against gay marriage;
• He thinks Toronto’s population has maxed out and can’t take in anymore people: “We can’t even deal with the 2.5 million people in this city. I think it’s more important that we take care of the people now before we start bringing in more.”;
• It came out this summer he reportedly was asked to step down as a high school football coach after an altercation in 2001;
• It recently was revealed he was charged with driving under the influence in Florida in 1999 — he did community service (Ford had denied the charges until the Toronto Sun ran a story exposing it);
• He allegedly offered to help an ill Toronto man the painkiller OxyContin (Ford says he just told the man whatever he needed to to get him off the phone);
• Oh, and if you do a parody site about him, he’ll have it shut down faster than you can blink.

And he’s still in the lead.

A year ago, I would have wagered that George Smitherman or John Tory (if he had run) would be leading — that this race would have been there’s to lose. Instead, Tory’s still on the radio and Smitherman is a distant second.

People are shocked about this. The Globe’s Christie Blatchford had the city all in a tizzy on Saturday when she wrote a column saying that Rob Ford isn’t all that bad after all. She said in her column that just admitting that fact will cause people’s “heads to explode.”

And they did.

My Twitter feed lit up with people outraged and their heads exploding online in a series of tweets (some expletive-filled). But here’s the rub (as much as it pains me to say it out loud), it’s really not a shock that Ford is leading.

Before your head explodes, here’s why: Ford is a mayor from the boroughs. So while the downtown citizens express outrage about his lead, he’s getting the votes from all those in the boroughs who have been forgotten about (or felt forgotten about) for the last six years under David Miller.

Smitherman is not leading because he’s a downtown man, that’s it. Ford is the guy for those who feel they don’t have a voice anymore.

Can Ford be beat? Perhaps, if enough downtown residents come out and vote Oct. 25. But I wouldn’t be too surprised if he wins.

(Photo courtesy of denmar on Flickr. See more of his photos in his photostream.)