NDP Leadership 53

Wells:Quebec's not making it easier for the NDP to pick a leader

I dont think Wells puts the questions the same way we would. And his framed choices are all around dualistic. But he's not writing for us, and its a good piece anyway.

 

The candidate of “holding Quebec” — the only candidate of holding Quebec, as Quebec opinion-makers see it — is Thomas Mulcair. I have been surprised, and then amused, at the unanimity with which my friends in the Quebec chattering classes assume that only Mulcair would be an acceptable NDP leader for Quebec voters — and that, since he’s on offer, the selection of any other candidate is ipso facto an affront to Quebecers.

This is odd, because if New Democrats chose a leader with roots in the province but residence outside it, instead of a Quebec-born-and-bred candidate, they’d only be doing what they did in 2003, when they picked the Hudson-born Torontonian Jack Layton over Pierre Ducasse. So theoretically Brian Topp, born outside Montreal, would sort of do. But I’m really not feeling the Topp love from the Quebec journalists and politics-watchers I talk to.

So: pick Mulcair to hold what the NDP already has, and then pray he can be made to appear warm and cuddly, or at least persuasive, in those parts of the country where he’s barely known. Or pick a Topp or a Peggy Nash (very popular among Toronto New Dems) or someone else, and hope Quebec quickly gets over the latest Historic Affront.

 Wow, I can't beleive some of you know everything would dismiss Romeo Saganash as not Quebec.  I mean the Cree only go back tens of thousands of years on the land mass we call Quebec.  What kind of heritage is that?

Wells is saying that in Quebec, there is no dispute that the candidate who can hold the province for the NDP is Mulcair. Obviously there is some dispute, since a number of NDP MPs are supporting other candidates. But outside the province, among the talking heads, they all think it's Mulcair.

To Shoon, I do hope we will see a narrowing of the field after the Halifax debate. It has been good to have a variety of candidates, their ideas, their organising, and their excitement, but I am getting tired of candidates that don't seem up to the task. Inadequate French is a very clear disqualifier but there are others too, like insufficient experience.

Based on the above traits and communications skills, I have a very clear picture in my mind of three tiers of candidates:

1st tier: Mulcair, Nash, Topp

2nd tier: Saganash, Ashton, Cullen

3rd tier: Dewar, Singh, Chisholm

I hope after the Halifax debate, whomever remains the third tier will drop off. I hope the second tier will also make clear what they need to happen, in subsequent months, to stay in the race. You shouldn't be in the race, if you can't do really well at convention. It goes against NDP tradition to ask leadership candidates to step off the soapbox and drop out, but I want the public to get a chance to know the next leader before they are elected and then defined (negatively) by the Conservatives. That is not possible right now, with so many candidates in the race, they suck up all the airtime.

While it remains to be seen, I think the party HQ really dropped the ball (again) on these debates. Here was an opportunity to expand the NDP base to a new audience by holding debates in new cities. Instead, it looks like they just went with NDP strongholds that would be "most able" to host the debates. What we are seeing now, is what a mistake this was. Places that have never hosted debates are clamouring to get in (e.g. Alberta, NFLD, Northern Ontario, others). With the raw energy we are seeing from these volunteers, a debate in these locations would be guaranteed to suceed, in fact some of these locations already have suceeded or would have suceeded if the HQ wasn't lumbering under the weight of these slow to spring up events in the NDP "strongholds." 

We also have to remember that some of these "strongholds" like Vancouver are getting two debates (i.e. the candidates town hall at BC NDP convention and one in March) and Toronto wanted two debates too (i.e. they already get the convention, two leadership campaigns running!). I have been watching how the leadership candidates respond to these debate scheduling issues and I would have to say that those candidates that accepted the invite to debate in Northern Ontario early (e.g. Mulcair) won points in my books and thus that issued calls for Toronto to have a second debate (e.g. Dewar) lost points.

If Chisholm's invitation is lost in the mail accidents happen. An aside as if being unligual wasn't bad enough, Chisholm has been endorsed by Howard Hampton, a man whose idea of good campaigning was trying nail jelly to a wall and worst yet Chisholm bragged about his endorsement. Look I like Hampton, a heart as big as his former riding and a great cabinate minister, but the man doesn't have the tactical sense the Gods gave a lemming. Best tactical decision he made was to let Andrea Horwath take over.