Toronto mayor filmed smoking crack cocaine?

Rob Ford is the mayor of Toronto, Canada’s largest city. But he’s about to be better known — at least in the United States — for something else. According to Gawker editor John Cook, there is a video of Ford smoking crack cocaine, Marion Barry style. The cellphone video is being shopped — get this, by Somali drug dealers — to media outlets, but thus far, no one has met their six-figure asking price.

This is where you come in.

In the spirit of Zach Braff and Veronica Mars, Gawker is crowdsourcing an effort to purchase the video — Kickstarter style — so that everyone can view Ford’s disgrace on its website.

Cook, who ventured to Toronto to personally view the incriminating tape, set up an account and webpage on Indiegogo for “Rob Ford Crackstarter,” with a $200,000 goal. With eight days remaining, he’s already raised more than $74,000.

You can imagine what Ford’s office is like this morning — though they’ve been aware of the alleged tape since at least Thursday. On Friday, Ford told reporters that “these allegations are ridiculous, another story with respect to the Toronto Star going after me. … By the way, can I borrow $200,000, gents?”

Okay, that last bit isn’t true.

Like Kickstarter, Indiegogo provides fundraising for aspiring artists, inventors, and grass-roots movements that lack access to conventional funding to become a reality. I’m not sure, though, if purchasing cellphone footage of a politician self-immolating was what the site’s idealistic founders had in mind. That said, I’m totally in for $50 if someone else has footage of Mayor Bloomberg slurping a Big Gulp.

Read more:

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‘Veronica Mars’: Kickstarter campaign closes with $5.7 million