No Balloons, No Campaign, Mayor Says: POTTER

By Evan H. Potter

Mark Sutcliffe is not, officially speaking, a candidate for mayor. But he did tell us last summer that he would be running for a second term. The paperwork just remains unfiled. The campaign, we are led to believe, has not yet started in earnest. The Mayor, for his part, is simply “focused on his job.”

It seems he’s the “decider” (remember President George W. Bush using this word?) on when the mayoral campaign really begins.

This is a useful formulation. Elastic, even. Strategic, even.

Because while Sutcliffe has yet to submit his nomination papers – he didn’t get around to that until very late in June 2022 – his three rivals, who all filed on the first day of the official campaign period, are very much out there, knocking on doors, shaking hands, and discovering the loneliness of being a challenger in Ottawa municipal politics. Meanwhile, the incumbent mayor continues to enjoy the advantages of incumbency, which, conveniently, can look a lot like campaigning.