Endorsements Aren't a Position. They're a Substitute for One.
Gimmicks and back-slapping fill the space where a debate should be. Policy is hard to formulate and hard to understand — which is exactly why it's so easy to trade it in for somebody's word for it.
Policy is hard. It's hard to formulate, hard to model the trade-offs of, and hard to explain in a way that doesn't put people to sleep. An endorsement, by contrast, is easy. It's a name, a photo, a quote about character. It costs the reader nothing to accept and the endorser nothing to give — and increasingly, that ease is doing the work that debate is supposed to do in this election.
There are two versions of this happening in Ottawa right now, and they're not the same problem, even though they produce the same emptiness.
The Challenger's Shortcut
The first is familiar: a candidate picks up a name-brand endorsement and lets it stand in for a platform. Vote for me, because someone you already trust says to. It's a real transaction — the endorser is putting something on the line for someone who hasn't held office yet — but it still isn't a substitute for a position on the St-Laurent tunnel, on OPS Board oversight, on where the city's off-balance-sheet liabilities are headed. An endorsement can open the door to a conversation. It's not the conversation.
The Incumbent's Closed Loop
The second version is quieter and, I'd argue, worse: incumbents endorsing incumbents. Colleague-to-colleague, council-to-council, the congratulatory back-slap dressed up as civic guidance. A great partner on council. Always fights for the ward. Proud to support. It's the political equivalent of "I'm OK, you're OK" — mutual validation between two people who already hold power, asking for four more years of the same.
What a challenger endorsement risks
The endorser is backing an unproven outcome. There's no guaranteed return — if the challenger loses, the endorser gets nothing back.
It's a bet, which means it's at least a claim. Someone is saying: I looked at this person and I think they're right for the job.
What an incumbent-incumbent endorsement risks
Nothing. Both parties already hold office. The "risk" is reciprocal and self-insuring — you back me this cycle, the goodwill compounds for next time.
It requires no engagement with either record. It's not a claim about performance at all. It's a relationship being described as a reason.
Ask what an incumbent-incumbent endorsement actually cites. Not in the abstract — read the next one you see. Does it name a vote? A motion? An outcome delivered versus one promised? Or does it stop at "great colleague" and "always in the community"? My prediction, based on everything I've read through King's own newsletters this cycle, is that you'll come up close to empty. That's not a coincidence. Content engineered to generate zero friction is content engineered to never be checked.
The tone you trust isn't the record you're voting on.
That's the mechanism underneath all of this, and it isn't limited to politics — it's a well-documented failure mode in how people extend trust to anything that stays consistently pleasant in tone, regardless of whether the underlying claims hold up. A newsletter that never mentions the tunnel closure sitting in its own ward reads exactly as trustworthy as one that does, if tone is the only thing being evaluated. Back-slapping endorsements work the same way: they borrow the warmth of an existing relationship and let it stand in for scrutiny nobody actually performed.
Where I Sit on This, Plainly
I have one endorsement — maybe two — and both were unsolicited. That's a thin list next to the reciprocal networks incumbents build over multiple terms in office, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
But thin and real is a better foundation than thick and free. Nobody backing a first-time or long-shot challenger is doing it to protect a future favour. There's nothing in it for them except agreeing with the argument. That's a higher bar than incumbents clear for each other by default, and it's worth saying plainly instead of padding the comparison to look symmetrical. It isn't.
What Would Actually Move This
Not fewer endorsements — better ones. An endorsement that means something says what it's actually backing:
- Which specific votes, motions, or delivered outcomes the endorsement is based on — not just "a great colleague."
- Whether the endorser has anything to gain from the relationship continuing, stated openly rather than left implicit.
- What the endorser would point to if asked to defend the claim on the merits, not the friendship.
Held to that standard, most of what currently passes for endorsement in this race — mine included — would have to either get specific or go quiet. I'd take that trade. The alternative is an election decided by who has the warmest network, which is just incumbency with a friendlier name.
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