Toronto Mayor Rob Ford already campaigning for next election

It is a new day in Toronto. You can tell because there is a new poll gauging Rob Ford’s chances of winning the next mayoral election.

The Toronto Star returned to its wheelhouse of skewering the embattled city mayor on Monday, reporting that he remains vulnerable to one-on-one competition in the 2014 municipal election, after winning an appeal against a conflict of interest ruling last week.

Say what you will about the Star’s contentious relationship with Ford, they must be thrilled he will be around a while longer. He is good for at least two headlines a day.

[ Related: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford looks ahead after appeal win ]

Results from a Forum Research poll suggest that Ford would lose the 2014 mayoral election in a head-to-head race against any of NDP MP Olivia Chow, former Ontario PC leader John Tory or Toronto Transit Commission chair Karen Stintz.

The poll suggests, however, that Ford would beat left-leaning council rival Adam Vaughan or former Toronto Blue Jay Jose Canseco. The steroid-tarnished Cuban expat recently told Twitter he would run for mayor if he could figure out the whole “citizenship" thing.

Back in reality, the mayoral race is not guaranteed to be a two-way race, which would appear to help Ford. Ford rolled to victory in 2010 while a list of candidates from former mayor David Miller’s camp stumbled over one another trying to replace him.

Ford was a dark horse then, but he won’t be next time. Working in his favour is that he has the next two years to campaign against those who could usurp his seat.

The Toronto Star reports that Ford spent heaps of time on his Sunday radio program bashing Stintz for extending the lease of subway newsstands without seeking competitive bids.

Stintz has long been seen as a possible mayoral candidate in 2014, and her right-of-centre approach could bleed some of Ford's support. Which is why it is hard to see this attack on subway magazine stands as anything but Rob Ford getting his groove back.

How do we know Ford is back to being Ford? During his post-appeal press conference (for which he was more than 10 minutes late) he said he had been humbled, but didn't show it.

[ Related: Ontario PCs release their first attack ads against Kathleen Wynne ]

He said the lesson he learned from his legal troubles was that he had 95 per cent of the public's support. A better, more factual, takeaway would have been that he should read and understand council guidelines.

And above that, he announced that he was ready to get back to work for the next six years. That would be the remainder of this scandal-plagued term and the next one as well.

It is a new day in Toronto. Rob Ford is still the mayor and he is still angling to keep it that way.