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Tom Mulcair will be Prime minister - Thread #4
April 3, 2012 - 12:40am
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Mulcair is no pushoverhttp://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/gerry-caplan/2012/04/mulcair-no-pushover
This had the makings of a real upset. The party would never sell out its ideals for something as tainted as actual power. Yet the innuendo failed entirely. The Thomas Mulcair who party members kept seeing and hearing had nothing in common with the caricature peddled by a small number of opponents.
As for the bitterly divided convention that would restore the party as the beautiful loser of Confederation, it never existed. Mr. Mulcair proved to have substantial support in the camps of every one of the candidates who dropped out, his lead increasing with each ballot until the inevitable conclusion. No one was coming up the middle. The winner was the real choice of a good majority of the party.
Of course there was anxiety right to the final moment that the much-hyped internal divisions would be on full public display at the worst possible moment. No such luck. Once the winner was proclaimed, there were Mr. Mulcair, Brian Topp, Ed Broadbent, deputy leader Libby Davies and all the other candidates hugging and kissing and generally carrying on as if they were stubbornly determined to work together for their common dreams and ideals.
The convention floor itself was a demographic revelation. Everywhere you looked there were kids, youth, you know – the young people who are so disaffected they don’t bother voting and have repudiated party politics. Remember the Quebec child-MPs elected on Jack Layton’s coattails, the lampposts who went to Parliament, the ones the media had such a blast mocking and humiliating for weeks after the election. Right. In fact many of them had the opportunity to speak on behalf of the various candidates and they blew the hall away with their bilingualism, confidence, eloquence, joie de vivre and political smarts. The cynical assumption that they were all destined to be one-term historical footnotes is in real danger of being badly disproved.
And to top it off, post-convention polling continues this groundbreaking trend. As one pollster summed it up this week, “It’s clear that the election of Tom Mulcair as NDP leader has considerably improved the party’s prospects.”
But New Democrats know that nothing could more fatal than complacency of any kind. There are hurdles and obstacles ahead, some of them not minor. Just think of the Conservative attacks on the new leader that have already begun. Everyone knows that dishonest adolescent bullying assaults on their rivals have worked for them before.
Look at what they’re trying to do to poor old Bob Rae. There was the honourable Jason Kenney asserting with his trademark sincerity that Bob Rae “led” Ontario into recession as premier of Ontario 22 years ago; in genteel parliamentary language this would be known as a shameless inversion of the truth. Clearly Stephen Harper’s enforcers believe their coming onslaught can undermine the new NDP leader in the same classy way they demolished Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff.
Who knows? Maybe they’re right. But the tides of March suggest this new NDP guy won’t be quite the pushover those Liberals were.
Mulcair just smoked Harper in QP over F35s
Here we go again - this should set tongues wagging in the rest of Canada but it is time Canadians from coast to coast to coast leart the realities of Quebec.
Canada opposition sees low bar for Quebec independence
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCABRE83210U20120403
Missed this one
Some thoughts on Mulcair-trashing, Linda Duncan’s dilemma, and Dewar team’s con jobDid anyone see Mulcari on P&P? I saw Rae and Soloman. Rae was bluster, bluster, heards should roll. Soloman said Mulcair was "more coy". Do you think that Mulcair is already starting to make the case that he looks Prime Minsterial?
Rae made the case that Harper should resign, and he did it well, citing another country where a similar situation existed.
How did Mulcair do? Who did better?
Mulcair certainly was more calm.
see for yourself.
CA, thanks! I can't bear to watch it though. I have a hard enough time watching the CBC in real time and even though I post about what I saw, I generally don't watch much; it stresses the heck out of me.
Could you tell me how you think things are shaping up?
Your welcome.
Like Boom Boom said, Mulcair certainly came across as being calm, and quite reasonable I thought. Evan Soloman kept on pushing to see if he would call for anyone to resign, but Mulcair went for more of a "we'll wait and see" approach. Chris Alexander probably came across the worst, since he kept on trying to interupt Soloman. He seemed pretty anxious. Bob Rae came across as a bit angry, calling for the Prime Minister himself to resign. In fairness to Bob Rae though, he was apparent;y attending a funeral earlier today. Maybe emotions were just running high for him.
So yeah, I think of the three of them, Mulcair looked the best.
Question Period should be fun to watch tomorrow.
CBC's "At Issue" panel (Chantal Hebert was absent) siad this is extremely serious, and the next few days will show whther the gov't wears this or not, depending on how they handle it. But there's more information to come out, and Mulcair and Rae need to keep the pressure on the gov't and hope they crack.
One of the panelists asked if Harper is feeling regret at appointing, first, Gordon O'Connor, and, then, Peter MacKay - two folks with no prior experience of dealing with gov't bureaucrats. There's a tradition of cabinet ministers taking the fall before the PM does, but the Cons will likely foist all the blame on the bureaucrats at DND despite the Auditor General's statement that the bureaucrats are not to blame - it's the government.
No way is this government throwing Fantino overboard.
Mulcair looked fairly good-- Not sure why hold back on whether a minister will be asked to resign and why that was wait and see-- might have been better just to say-- "let's hear from him first"
Overall though a good outing for Mulcair.
Soloman was asking the hard questions of the government and he did go for the jugular. Alexander looked foolish. Soloman looked like a real journalist actually.
Liberal-lover Yaffe will do their bidding, no matter how dumb or idiotic the Liberal message is.
NDP portrayed as threat to national unityhttp://www.calgaryherald.com/news/portrayed+threat+national+unity/640772...
I think we really need to have a plan to finish off Dion on this quickly. What a Dick. What, he wants more stick it to the poor Paul Martin Budgets? What a disingenuous so and so! These guys will stop at nothing when it comes to power.
http://www.ndp.ca/app/
Bob Rae on CBC Newsworld just now: "...Stephen Harper is not fit to be Prime Minister of Canada".
I guess Rae is now off the PM's Christmas Card list.
I suppose things are just not going very well for Mr Rae these days what with the current polling, looking over his shoulder at Trudeau, etc.
Tension between NDP, Liberals as Rae calls Mulcair a ‘mini-Harper’http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/04/tension-between-ndp-liberals-as-...
yes, I have a blackberry so it would be nice if we support Canadian companies
Does anyone have a comment on what was going on between Mulcair and Rae today. Rae said something like "Mr. Mulcair wouldn't know the truth if the light was shining on it", or something similar to this. Is Rae trying to build a bulwark against Trudeau? Is it a case of the Libs are feeling frustrated over the fact they are the third party and are trying to fight the perception becoming reality in the minds of Canadians? What about Trudeau. No one on here has answered this. Is Trudeau going to run for leader? I think he is and they are going to try and say they need Trudeau to perserve Canada by keeping Quebec in Canada and that Trudeau is the second coming of his dad and the only one who can save Canada. How carzy sounding is this?
I think Rae is being foolish here.
I also think Mulcair should not engage in the pettiness.
I also think that there is an issue if the NDP was deliberately wasting time that other MPs needed to express their opinions. This needs to be explained and it has not been explained by the NDP. I would be disgusted if this was payback. Those Liberal MPs represent Canadians who want their MP to speak. Even if we have little respect for those MPs let us respect their constituents. The argument that the NDP took the time to prevent the Cons from wasting it is a horribly weak argument. The NDP could have made sure the Liberals got to speak and together blocked the Cons if that was the point.
The NDP and the Liberals are engaged in a petty who is the real opposition game and the NDP which is the real opposition ought to know better. I hope someone is reading this because this is not impressive and does not meet the standard the NDP claimed it wanted to set.So now the NDP after that issue is claiming to be shocked that Rae is taking a shot at them? Sorry but that's just not smart. Learn from it-- fast. Behave better and then you can expect and hold others to the same standard.
If there is some better explanation for what the NDP did then I'd like to hear it-- but so far the explanations they provided are very poor. I suggest the NDP apologize and move on and show that we can be better.
Canada’s political reversal is complete
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/jeffrey-simpson/canadas-pol...