Avoiding the wrong kind of ambition

This election, voters should try to distinguish between movers and climbers

We should all applaud the Hamiltonians who have placed their names on October’s municipal ballot. They’re our friends, neighbours, and colleagues; members of our communities for whom simply voting in elections has exhausted its utility. The decision is never easy. It takes brainstorming and soul searching, personal and professional sacrifices, and a readiness to face public scrutiny. A thriving democracy needs such people; driven, determined, and willing to assume the burdens of political leadership.

Yet it also needs elected leaders who are more focused on moving mountains than climbing them for their own ends; two very different kinds of ambitions, yielding two wildly divergent breeds of politicians.

Mountain Climbers aspire to an office. They’re committed to their communities, but also to securing their own place at the summit of those communities. In Hamilton, we know this kind well; career politicians who are always in the running for some kind of office, seeking reelection, or promotion to an everhigher post. So concerned are they with their own place on the mountain, leaders of this ilk rarely leave one office before climbing to the next. Instead, like many of our past and present city councillors, they choose a risk-free political ascent, pursuing provincial and federal offices while still on the municipal payroll.

Mountain Movers, on the other hand, see politics not as a career, but as part of a calling to serve their communities. However, in serving, they don’t simply stick-around, content with being mere administrative leaders. For Movers, public service, is about solving problems. They would rather take the initiative, make a stand, or disrupt the status quo, than milk incumbency for all its benefits. Where Climbers see only voters and the next election, Movers see fellow citizens and a common future for which to fight. Their relationship with constituents is shaped not by political calculations but by shared experiences and values. What this amounts to, is a politician who puts community before career, principle before prestige, and duty before desire.

Unfortunately, there is no formula for electing Movers. Leaders with transformational potential are more likely to rise to an occasion than be recruited to manage one. Voters, however, have ways of identifying candidates who fit the mould of a Climber.

First, we can hold to a higher standard the ambitions of “Early Bird Candidates;” aspirants for office who campaign to the catchy tune of “in it to win it from Day 1.” Getting one’s name out there early is usually a sound strategy. Candidates need time to forge connections with voters, and voters generally respond well to candidates willing to campaign a full 12 rounds. Still, there are occasions when an Early Bird’s ambitions ride roughshod over the needs of constituents. Take, for example, the municipal candidates who began campaigning during the recent provincial election. In placing their own unrelated political prospects before our community’s need to process, heal, and recover mentally from a historically brutal provincial contest, these “GoGetters” revealed the depths of their self-serving inclinations.

Next, we can take aim at “Parachute Candidates;” wannabe leaders who seemingly drop into our communities out of nowhere during election time. Their Kryptonite, a simple question at the door: “where do you live?”

We should also be critical of “All Purpose Candidates;” individuals with a track-record of pursuing multiple levels of office. Someone who runs unsuccessfully provincially, only to turn around and try their hand municipally, or vice versa, is not likely motivated by a specific sense of mission for their community. Rather, they appear concerned primarily with just being elected to something.

Lastly, in the absence of legislation mandating municipal term limits, we need to better probe the ambitions of candidates seeking reelection beyond a second term. While we’d be hardpressed to label individuals wishing to remain in one office longer than eight years as Climbers, Movers they certainly are not. A compelling case must be made at our doors by “Third Term Candidates:” we want to know what work remains to be done, what benchmarks remain to be set, what vision has yet to be realized, and most of all, what’s taking so long? Incumbents who fall back on the cliché that “a councillor’s work is never done” are referring more to job security than sense of duty.

As residents of the “Ambitious City,” we all want to live in a Hamilton that dreams big, drives hard, and moves mountains. The only thing in our way is the wrong kind of ambition on city council.