Opinion: Big, Obnoxious Toronto Mayor Visits Chicago, Blends In Too Well

" Toronto Mayor Rob Ford spent two days in Chicago, and nobody noticed. The controversial Canadian mayor’s trade visit, which coincided with the end of our city’s first teacher strike in 25 years, was huge news in Canada.

Here, it didn’t make the Tribune or the Sun-Times. Maybe that’s because, as I found out when I wrote a Great Lakes travelogue, Americans don’t want to read about Canada. Or maybe it’s because Ford didn’t look at all like a foreigner in Chicago. Although the Toronto Sun portrayed him as Jake Blues, he actually looks more like Jim Belushi’s brother-in-law on According to Jim than John Belushi. And he has the personality of Saturday Night Live motivational speaker Matt Foley. Ford is so loud and obese it wouldn’t have been surprising if he’d applied for asylum in the United States.      More on that in a moment. After taking a boat tour of downtown Chicago, Ford had a private half-hour meeting with Mayor Rahm Emanuel. They talked about the two cities’ business relationships, as well as garbage pickup, an unglamorous housekeeping task of mayors everywhere. They also discussed labor issues, or labour issues, if you're reading this in Canada. Ford recently signed a four-year deal with his city’s workers. "

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