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Ken, no need to guess on why Topp didn't run: he explained it very clearly himself in his opening news conference.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/09/12/pol-ndp-brian-topp.html
What he said was that his wife and kids had followed him around from city to city in his political career as a staffer, and finally she asked when it would be their time to have him. That's when they moved to Toronto, and he went to work for Actra. Their sons grew, Brian directed a few national campaigns, and then asked to pull back from the last one after the prostate cancer diagnosis, whereupon Jack asked him to head up the platform committee instead. I might have some tiny details wrong, but you can watch the raw tape above yourself if you want.
Now that his boys are teenagers and well on his way, he now has his wife's sanction to run for office, and he said unequivocally that he intends to do so in the next election, whether he wins the leadership or not. There's no basis for disbelieving him on that score, as he's usually done what he said he would do in the past.
Stock the booing of Topp in Vancouver was unfortuanate, but real. He ignored two calls from the moderator to stop after he exceeded his time. When he persisted after a momentary pause, people objected in the traditional fashion. Any camp trying to organize a put down of another candidate could not have predicted a faux pas like was committed would give them an openning.
Given his many endorsers in the hall, it did not help his cause that people booed. Not surprisingly spin doctors emerge with explanations of what happened. I have not listened to the tape of the event, but in the room the negative reaction was quite unexpected. Overall there is a good rapport among the candidates, no one especialy wants to see another do poorly, since it relects on all of them. All want to do as well as possible, obviously.
He was Deputy Chief of Staff to a provincial premier, for nearly a decade. That actually does count for something. If there was a major decision by the government of Saskatchewan during that period, Topp was in the room and part of the decision.
Nicky, anything is possible. It's even possible that we'd sweep every seat in Quebec.
However, I've been around politics for a couple of days. While one can point to cases where a sweep is followed by an even larger sweep, one can also point to cases where a sweep is followed by a collapse. However, in my experience and observation, the most common outcome is that a sweep is followed by some incremental erosion.
I'm not assuming anything. I just don't want us setting a bar that is, all things being equal, unlikely to be achieved.
If we win, say, 57 Quebec seats in 2015, I don't want the media narrative to be "NDP falls short."
Oh, and since uniform sweeps never hapen, then your seventy seat proection is worse than useless. For God's sake, don't let that become the bar we need to clear to declare victory.
Anyway, personal expectations of the range of possibilities in Quebec make no difference in how people approach this leadership race.
Ottawaobserver has it basically right - I've focused on contributing as a party activist since 1999 (when I left the Government of Saskatchewan once the coalition government was safely in place there) because of committments I wanted to keep to my family and to the organizations I was hired to helped lead. We have debated this issue every leadership race in recent times. Is there any legitimate experience party members might consider other than being an opposition MP in parliament - a critically important role to be sure? Party members thought so in the past. All we can say for sure is that our rules permit any member to run for leader. We are looking to win a national election. We are looking to run a government. We are looking for someone to lead a complex party. We are looking for someone to outthink Mr. Harper, Mr. Rae and Mr. Paille. We are looking for someone who will make a winning appeal to Canadians. We are looking for someone who can lead our work in Quebec and across Canada. I've been involved in a central role in five federal elections. I worked at the heart of a successful NDP government for seven years. I'm a leader in the labour movement and the credit union movement. Members are familiar with my work measured against our opponents and as a case to put to voters -- for example, via our last three election platforms, which I played a role in shaping. I'm a bilingual Quebecer who has worked in Quebec, Ottawa, Saskatchewan and BC.
I'm not a perfect candidate alas, but no perfect candidates are running. As a case in point, I did indeed run over my time during opening statements at the candidates' forum in BC. I apologized afterwards to our moderator, Judy Darcy, for not hearing her timecall. It was a plain mistake. The four town halls I did in BC before and after the convention went better, as did the one I did in Edmonton the following day. I left strongly recommitted to keeping a better eye on the clock during forums.
I've been out talking to members in this campaign for three months now - a really heartening experience, speaking of experience. There are a strikingly lot of smart, thoughtful people in our party, and they're going to make the right decision in March.
All the best, Bt
Just in:
Dear Friends
On Sunday, December 4th, Niki Ashton introduced her vision of a new politics to a national audience for the first time.
Pundits are talking about Niki Ashton's clear message of equality, her poise and the quality of her performance in both of our country's official languages.
" Round 1 Goes to Mulcair and Ashton. it was a treat to see the zest and command of this 29 year-old multilingual Manitoban. She's calling for a new politics. " Lawrence Martin, ipolitics.ca
"Niki Ashton comes ready to rumble, as poised and articulate in French as she is in English."
Paul Wells, Maclean's
"My verdict: overall, the best orators amongst the range of candidates were Thomas Mulcair and Niki Ashton, they met expectations and they looked capable of running an election campaign." Raymond Giroux, Le Soleil
" Who looked most comfortable in their own skin in the NDP debate? Nathan Cullen and Niki Ashton." David Akin, National Bureau Chief, Sun Media
In terms of french proficiency she was rated as one of the top four. "Good enough - Ashton, Topp. What do I mean by "good enough"? " Good enough to stand up to a two-hour television debate in one's second language against several unfriendly opponents during an election campaign. And good enough to be an effective leader of a Canadian national party with serious aspirations of forming the government." Don Macpherson, Montreal Gazette.
In the coming weeks, Ashton will continue to tour the country talking about a new kind of politics. A new politics that builds bridges between regions, communities and generations.
We're confident that, as more New Democrats and more Canadians meet Niki, they will respond positively to her vision of a new politics and join our party to support her. A lot of people are taking another look at Niki after her performance in the first debate. And we're just getting started!
But it will take money to wage that kind of campaign. The good news is that the money is out there for Niki to run the best campaign possible. The bad news is that most of it still hasn't been collected.
That's why we're writing to you today. We're asking you to donate $25, $50, $100, whatever you can afford to invest in the future of our great party, and our great country. And remember, if you donate, you willl get back up to 75% of your donation on your taxes!
Together, we can turn the page on the old, divisive and destructive politics of the past and write the first chapter of a new politics based on equality, inclusion and real economic, environmental and social progress. We hope you'll join us!
Campaign for A New Politics
It looks like something in Shoon's post # 29 is making the text go wonky in his and following posts. Usually, its just the posters own message that is effected.
Most likely caused by all the extra end quote commands.
The quote function- or whatever the propoer technical name is- is really clunky on this board. If you edit to try and get rid of them, and find it too hard to figure out- delete the whole quote and leave what you said.
Brian Topp raises an interesting point in his post here this morning.
Touching on the good terms among the candidates.
Which is an interesting comparison to how we get here in these leadership forums. [Not that is necessarily even the obvious competition. If anything, this is at least more civil than average for Babble.]
I would actually like to see something in between. Not the candidates getting all hepped up at each other. But also not the generalized kid glove treatment with each other. While mixing it up a fair bit more might be good for the leadership race and the party, it is risky for any one candidate who breaks out of the mode of what looks like de facto required kid glove treatment. It doesn't look like Brian paid a price for doing that in the Ottawa debate- but the read of that was mixed, and it could have been worse.
For all the spleen vented around here, the NDP and the Canadian left have never been big on fulsome debate. Have a comparison to the UK Labour Party at any time, and the corresponding level of discussion in the pubs and on the internet.
well the media's fiesta about the NDP "free fall" in Quebec lasted all of one day. the latest CROP poll of 1,000 has the NDP at 36% and 14 points ahead of both the BQ and the Tories. seems that Rae's song and dance on TLMEP did not move Liberal support one iota.
Where can you find it Stockholm?
Ken, seriously, you have got to watch that video of his launch if you're going to keep making claims about Topp. He said, there and other places in the media in the couple of weeks that followed, that he had made a promise to his wife to give his family some real concerted time for a while before running for office, since they'd made sacrifices for his career as a political organizer for so long.
[whoops, sorry, now see that OO already answered that! but please, Ken, watch the dang video.]
Done.
But hey, me getting it not right, and eventually Brian shows up here to speak for himself, and not just to this question.
Not bad.
Handful implies five or less, not twelve.
Topp 5: Françoise Boivin, Gatineau; Alain Giguère, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin; Alexandre Boulerice, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie; Charmaine Borg, Terrebonne—Blainville; Isabelle Morin, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.
Ashton 3: Jean-François Larose, Repentigny; François Choquette, Drummond; Francine Raynault, Joliette.
Nash 2: Anne Minh-Thu Quach, Beauharnois—Salaberry; Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, Hochelaga.
Saganash 2: Christine Moore, Abitibi—Témiscamingue; Pierre Dionne Labelle, Rivière-du-Nord.
I just got the year-end appeal in the mail yesterday. It implied my donation would go into a war-chest to launch a fight-back campaign on day one of our new leader's era. Sorry, no. If it had promised a national tv campaign recruiting for the NDP, I'd have donated to that.
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/quebec-canada/politique-canadienne/201112/16/01-4478439-les-chefs-laissent...
If you don't read french, you can always pop it into Google Translate.
Well, that is reassuring. I think all this proves is that there is lots of noise, and that overall, things haven't really changed that much. I guess time will tell, but this is good to hear. Thanks very much OO!
Any links to the ones that 'certainly' think Mulcair is the better choice for Quebec purposes?
I can remeber one saying Topp is the one for the rest of Canada. You seem to be taking the leap that means he is indicating Mulcair is the best for Quebec.
[And then form that leap- on to inferring that is likely what all of them think.]
NOTE TO MODS: could we please get that wonky stuff out of post29 that is throwing off the display of text.
[Or whatever the problem is.]
Beyond a quick and dirty, uniform sweeps are a pointless exercise. A uniform sweep in the last Saskatchewan election would have left the NDP with about four seats which, if my vague recollection of arithmetic is correct, is somewhat less than nine. The problem with 308 is precisely that he uses uniform sweeps (first invalid methodology) and tweeks it by averaging poll results from different companies (second invalid methodology) and then tweeks it further with guesses based on his own faulty assumptions (third invalid methodology).
All of which is beside the point Nicky. You want us to work on the assumption that the next election should leave us with 59 seats in Quebec (net presumably) al things being equal. I'm just saying that, based on a little bit of electoral experience picked up here and there, that such an outcome, while certainly possible, is not they typical outcome on the available data. The most likely outcome is incremental erosion.
Furthermore, while leadership will be one of the determinants, it won't be the only one. The performance of 59 Quebec MPs will be at least as significant - and arguably more so.
I`m not a big fan of rose coloured glasses. I think they are unhelpful in terms of useful political analysis.
Hey Shoon.
Please go to post 29 and clean that up.
The plea to the mods is about your post.
If you dont know how, we'll tell you.
Its a weird feature of this board.
And you have a private message, which should be showing.
And another nice feature of the board: if you try to reply to or send a private message, it will tell you that it failed to send. Dont believe it.
Where can one get tickets to your future ballet?
(I know. Typo. I just tought it was such an apropos typo.)
Worth framing.
Part of the media misconception is their wilful ignorance of 57 of our Quebec MPs, everyone but Mulcair and Boivin. Yesterday the Globe ran a piece that said Daniel Paillé had lost his seat to an unknown NDP candidate. I replied, but the Globe did not print:
I think everyone should keep jumping on the media when they say things like that.
When I saw him on Monday, I thanked him for reading and occasionally participating on Babble. He responded that he'd been on Babble for a long time, and that had sometimes "stolen" ideas from here (and then thanked us for it *g*).
It's a little thing, and probably won't influence my vote one way or the other, but it does matter to me that a leader have their finger on the pulse of the social media aspects of the party in one way or another. Because for one, this little place (and others like it such as Twitter, or the blogosphere) do very occasionally have ideas worth stealing, and for two because it's another perfectly valid way of understanding the party grassroots.
Couple of points about the La Presse poll.
First, it's probably more accurate than Harris Decima (larger smaple size). There might be a Leger poll out soon to confrim either way.
Second, CROP still shows an NDP decline relative to May2nd. Admitedly, it's nothing like "free fall", but still cause for concern. It's proof, contra Stockholm, that nobody should take QC support for granted.
Third, the media, with a few exceptions, desperately wants to send the NDP back to third place (Just one concrete example: Lead G&M political columnsit, describes himself as a "libretarian". See "Being John Ibbitson" published in the Ryerson Review of Journalism. That's a perefectely respectable point of view, but he is anything but a neutral observer of politics, as people who don't follow these things closely might assume. Contrast that with Chatal Hebert, at least trying to maintain a veil of neutrality. «Même mes fils ignorent mes convictions politiques profondes" http://www.ellequebec.com/celebrites/chantal-hebert-lucide-parfois-acide...) Ideologically, I would bet most English Canadian journalists are economic libretarians and break out in a cold sweat just thinking about an NDP gov't. This might go some ways to explaining all the headlines about the Harris Decima poll."NDP in free fall in Quebec" rathe than "NDP still in second , despite losses in Quebec".
In any case, I can already hear the lines being spun if anyone but Mulcair wins. "NDP returns to its roots as a party of English Canadian social-protest", will the main narrative in both Enlgish and French press. Quebecers will be told 24hours a day that they would be foolish to support a party that turned its back on a great QC candidate, e.t.c...English Canadians will be told that there is no reason to take the NDP seriously because it's a "one time wonder in Quebec". Unless one believes that the media has no effect on voters' decisions, I can't understand why NDP members want to make it easy for its foes in the press gallery. They've already bet against Mulcair and will be in a real pickle if he manages to win.
Once again, considering how hard Mulcair is to attack, and considering that they know that the MSM will not be doing the NDP any favours, I can't understand why Broadbent & co. are opposing his candidacy. When I asked that question a few days ago, I don't think I got an answer (I may have missed it b/c there are so many simulanteous conversations going on....). So I ask it again....
Dont read too much about ideology into the narrative "NDP free fall". Yes they dont like us. Threatened by us, I dont know about that. They are still stuck in dismissing us.
Yes or no on that, strip away ideology, and the MSM being what it is they would STILL say "NDP free fall in Quebec"
Its called "news" and grabbing eyeballs. Analysis requires more salaries paid. Screw that.
Think again. While I think you may not entirely alone in this idea, I think it would be far less than universaly shared even among other Mulcair supporters.