It seems we really, kinda, sorta like Jim Watson. (OK – 66 per cent of us, plus or minus 4.9 per cent, nineteen times out of twenty.)

This according to a survey of public-approval ratings for Canada’s fifteen big-city mayors by Forum Research, which rated Watson the fifth most popular, behind Mississauga’s Hazel McCallion (78 per cent approval), Calgary’s Naheed Nenshi (76 per cent), Quebec City’s Regis Labeaume (74 per cent) and Surrey’s Diane Watts (68 per cent).

Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford, elected at the same time as Watson with a similar share of the vote (47 per cent for Rob, 49 per cent for Jim), lands second-last on the survey with 37 per cent support. His unpopularity is trumped only by that of Gerald Tremblay, mayor of Montreal (32 per cent), where collapsing overpasses and allegations of private-public partnerships with organized crime and construction firms have left nobody looking good.

So what? you might ask. There’s more to governing than popularity. That’s entirely true, but try winning office or getting anything done there without it. Last week might serve as an illustration of elected life at 37 per cent and 66 per cent approval, respectively.

Ford spent much of the week half-apologizing for and half-arguing over which particular profanities he spewed at a 911 operator as he called the cops on a camera crew from This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Ford Nation’s never dull. 

Meanwhile, Watson was basking in fairly warm applause for a draft budget that proposes to raise everyone’s property taxes 2.39 per cent, a moderate kick in the ankle, announced well in advance, instead of a surprise impact higher up.

The lesson of his predecessor Larry O’Brien, who loudly pledged to freeze those rates and then conspicuously failed to deliver, is seemingly well learned. A proudly dull Watson likes to borrow Holiday Inn’s motto: “No surprises.”

If managing expectations is a key to Watson’s appeal, he also cultivates allies by sharing credit with them. In last week’s budget speech, as in last year’s, he managed to name-check all 23 of his city council colleagues, tying their names to specific achievements and plans, plus numerous shoutouts to senior staff.

Watson’s sunny ways aside, only 47 per cent of respondents to the mayoral survey said they’d re-elect him, placing him second in a hypothetical election against “Someone Else,” who would get 53 per cent of the vote.

Until Someone Else comes along, though, the like affair with Mayor Watson continues.