Ford adds Harper backroomer to his campaign team

Mayoral candidate Rob Ford has been talking a lot lately about how he is a fiscal conservative but also a big social liberal.

So you might think he would add a Liberal, even a token NDPer to his campaign team, right? Think again. In a news release, Ford announced Wednesday that Richard Ciano is Team Ford's new deputy campaign manager and director of operations.

"Ciano is a professional market researcher, a former Vice President of the Conservative Party of Canada, worked in the Conservative Party War Room in the 2006 Federal Election, and has served as campaign manager to International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan and Thornhill MPP Peter Shurman.  He is also a noted political trainer," the release states.

He's also the founder of the Conservative Campaign University.

Any doubt about his commitment to Prime Minister Stephen Harper should be erased by this 2006 YouTube clip, in which he appears on Michael Coren's show to talk about, among other things, the contenders for the Liberal leadership. He goes into full don't-take-a-breath partisan message track.

But, of course, there are no party politics at the municipal level. Right?