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NDP hopefuls split on reviving gun registry
Frankly, I think its stupid. To raise the issue. But my opinion isnt the point here.
The candidates evenly split on yes or no to the idea.
Except for one who would not take a position. Guess who?
I'm not at all advocating anything extreme. And my own track record should be clear enough on that.
All politicians try in the course of things to be as many things to as many people as is possible.
Jack Layton was more like that than I would prefer or thought necessary. Though not in a category with Darel Dexter.
But maybe Jacks positioning was necessary. If it was, that doesnt mean it still is, or that Jack himself would have stayed there.
Generally, there is some significant movement away from that from the field of candidates. And when it is stands the candidate will have to wear now, it cannot all be chaked up only to telling the membership what they want to hear. [To do that, you have to pick things that will not haunt you even when/if you drop talking about them.]
And I am saying that Mulcair doesnt just do some of the all things to all people- it IS his strategy. To date at least. He positions himself as the centrist who can win, while doing general talk and in a tenor that the cadre wants to hear.
I've dealt with each of the campaigns' organizations in planning our riding association's series of Kitchen Table talks, and definitely have the impression that Dewar's is on the ball.
From the Cornwall Free Press:
"Is Mr Newman Right About the Liberal Party/"
http://cornwallfreenews.com/2011/11/is-mr-newman-correct-about-the-federal-liberal-party-a-few-thoughts-by-jamie-gilcig-november-21-2011/
The wild card is of course the NDP and Thomas Mulcair.
If Thomas Mulcair doesn’t become leader of the NDP that is the note that should ramp up Liberals across the country. Mr. Mulcair could be a leader for any of the big three parties in Canada. He can speak . He’s smart and has fire in his belly a plenty. A cross between a Jean Chretien and Jack Layton and someone that if he achieves the leadership of the NDP could garner enough cross over support to threaten Mr. Harper in the next election.
That would spell trouble for the current Liberal position.
2012 will be interesting indeed; for the future of the NDP, the Liberals and the next election.
You can't win department:
1. If a candidate promotes a specific plank, she or he can be criticized for failing to respect internal party democracy (policy is set by the Convention, and by the Council between conventions, not by the leader.)
2. If, on the other hand, a candidate focusses only on how the party can defeat Harper, he's accused of being all things to all people.
3. If a candidate tries to take a middle path of expressing an attitude and an orientation, she is accused of spouting empty phrases like "New Politics."
:-) Wilf
Well, that would probably rule out a P3, then.
Other than Mulclair being a front runner I have no idea where the rest stand.
For the Nth time, I did not say it is a matter of 'not being specific'.
It is the strategy of positioning yourself as the centrist who can win, while making soothing noises for the cadre that would not like that, which are general enough that they could mean anything.
And if you go in with an assessment there are not going to be significant differences in the offerings of the candidates, then I guess we might as well vote for the candidate with the best 'style', eh. Coincidence I suppose that we hear that line from Mulcair supporters.
KenS, do you see Mulcair as a triangulator? To me, that is what centrist means. Otherwise I'd think he's more of a moderate.
I do not quite get what you are saying about Mulcair. Because of the stands he's taken, and because of his willingness to stand his ground to media, he doesn't come off as the typical centrist. Maybe I read dailykos too much but when I hear of centrist I think of some of the cowardly caving Blue Dog Dems. That's doesn't seem like Mulcair.
To me centrist doesn't signify someone whose policy tendencies are in the political centre. That's a moderate. Centrist means someone who applies the questionable strategy of ceding half the difference between yourself and your political adversaries in the hopes of appearing "most reasonable".
Something that hasn't been mentioned but I hope comes up is the party itself and if it needs to be reformed, changed etc. Peggy Nash coming out of the NPI has always been a strong advocate of an activist party/party-movement. She's been a strong advocate of encouraging young people to vote, more female participation in politics and engaging social movements from Occupy to local community groups. This factor is a big reason why I think Ducasse has endorsed her. I want to see an activist party, a 24/7 party that is more than just about electing people to parliament. This is something others who have been following her for a while are expecting. This is something to also engage the youth who I think Jack turned solidy NDP and have become increasingly politicized through Occupy. For this reason this is why I'd argue Peggy is the candidate of the "left" insofar as she would encourage space in the party for one to develop, though if every candidate was going to release a detailed policy statement, Peggy's would be more to the left than say Mulcair and Cullen even if we assume those other candidates aren't trying to pull the NDP to the centre. I met Peggy during the federal election, and we got to talking about economic policy and low and behold she was citing Jim Stanford and giving good left wing arguements on economic policy.
Jack did some good activist work and it was nice to see him pop up at rallies where I didn't think he would show up. His activist cred from Toronto was obviously excellent, but I think his preoccupation with modernizing the party and winning more seats distracted from this to an extent. Being where the NDP is now it's going to need an extra little "oomph" to get it over the top. Perhaps Harper will run the country into the ground and the NDP could get elected regardless of who wins but if we want to build more than just a progressive majority but a politically engaged left wing electorate that will put pressure on the NDP to enact the policies we want to see we need a party and a leader who can do more than just go toe to toe with Haper in QP. Even if Mulcair is a good social democrat, if the Liberals implode and Harper really screws up, there will be pressure to play it safe in 2015. Not to mention the plethora of Liberals that will flood into the party under those circumstances. I don't think that will necessarily lead to a NDP government doing everything we want it to. My concern with Topp is that I simply don't trust him to run the party in a manner that will empower the rank and file.
I wasn't intending to sound "testy" earlier. I was merely pointing out that there were possible layers of reasons rather than one omnibus reason that a campaign might have made a given choice.
While I'm involved in the Aston campaign, I'm not privy to why there was no presence at the ONDP council meeting.
One possibility that does strike me (and again, this is speculation, not explanation) is that few of the campaigns have organizational / representational capacity in every part of the country right now. Topp and Mulcair appear to (as befits the perceived front-runners). I rather suspect that most (all?) of the rest will have regional gaps at this point.
I don't think Mulcair does, yet. Dewar's campaign has city leads in every major city now, I heard on the weekend.
ETA: Of course, he has Michele Girash as his org director, and she's amazing, so what else would you expect.
I think that some will put their second or third choice first on a ballot figuring that it will go to more than one ballot and that their first ballot choice will be knocked off but will still have a decent showing.
Winston says:
The "collaborative approach" seems to differ from "negotiation skills" in the perception that all things are interconnected. Agree that what we need in a leader is someone who can negotiate - both with other MPs in opposition and then with other world leaders.
Agree with everyone who says that Topp's support is over estimated. Bookish Agrarian - that is something that Mulcair has to be careful about - especially since Dewar is one of the smaller players right now. One can forgive that kind of sign move if done on the front runner - otherwise it does make one look like a bully.
HM - Nystrom was never really in it - it was a two man race with many being inspired by Ducasse's speech. I don't think it would have been much different ideologically under Blaikie than Jack - but concede that we would not have been where we are now without Jack.
Stockholm - Ducasse endorsing Nash!
AnonymousMouse - this "seeking consensus" thing only works if one is a good negotiator. Jack was a good negotiator - which means that he usually punched above the weight of his caucus in getting positive things done - even under the most averse circumstances. We got universal healthcare because Tommy Douglas was a good negotiator.
[moved to thread #40]
me too
Closed for length.