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Yeah, sorry, the whole bloodsport / battle / toe-to-toe ... that whole bundle of [masculine] memes speaks to one way of approaching this project of life together. It does not inspire or interest me. And I don't think it's the way we have to be together. It is not a model I am interested in embracing.
Rather, I want to contrast from it, and offer another way to be in this world.
We've seen who has won the bloodsport / battle / toe-to-toe over the last few hundred years.
As I said at the start, this leadership race is crap. They're all in the same party. They should get together and decide which of them is best suited to be leader, instead of duking it out in public, using tactical points against each other, inventing "policy" (as if an individual has the right to do such a thing) - and creating a situation where their supporters go to war against each other.
And some call this a sign of good health and vigour. Not me.
RP: he's from both! Moved to Etobicoke and went to high school there. Like me, his "from" comes in increments! ;0]
I know I was a bit guilty of the "withstanding a negative Harper attack campaign best" rationale for Saganash earlier in thread #76 or #77. I agree with others who have said that this should not be a barometer for chosing a leader. As has been pointed out by some, Harper is going to find something negative to go hard and heavy on and no matter who the leader is, and it's probably going to have some impact, unfortunately.
All this talk about seasoned federal politicians and being better able to handle a Harper attack doesn't really wash with me. Paul Martin was more than seasoned, he came from Liberal political establishment. Even he cowered before Harper. On his last campaign, there were times that he looked physically ill and completely defeated.
Harper is not an opponent in a game but a bully, a really nasty one. Any attempts at verbal sparring in the HoC have only left many in the electorate ashamed of how bad things have gotten in federal politics.
Doofy asked me in the thread why I disagree with the claim that Mulcair is the most "electable."
The answer: Maybe he is. But for me it's not just about winning seats at all cost, it's about winning over Canadians with a principled social democratic agenda. I'm not convinced Mulcair is a much of a social democrat at all, he is very much on the right of the party. Even if he's the most capable of "finishing off the Liberals" (which he may very well be), the price isn't worth it at the expense of party ideology.
I'm also not convinced that every other candidate is a "disaster." I think Peggy Nash for instance a very strong candidate who offers what Tom Walkom referred to as a "pragamatic radicalism." She has at least attempted to provide an alternative to neoliberalism and address what social democratic economics means today, and she certainly seems to have lot of young people supporting her campaign. She's a pioneer in the union movement and is well linked with social movements. I very much agree with Murray Dobbin's contrast of Mulcair and Nash:
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/10/24/NDP-Leadership-Race/
And I'm quite irked by the dismissals of Saganash here. If he's not eminently qualified, I don't know who is. First the line was he "lacks experience", then it changed to "he's too much of a policy wonk who lacks the street smarts to beat Harper and doesn't have it down to good slogans that can appeal to the voters." Nobody else in the race has faced and overcome the challanges he has. Give him the chance and I think he'd win a lot of support, especially from disaffected voters.
Before people start agreeing that candidates cannot propose new policies- I suggest that people should check out the NDP constitution on this matter.
Always read the fine print and note how things can be interpreted... Also, I'm sure that the notion of appointing a heir would be seen as... well you get the point.
(because the points you make are silly, you should instead criticize saganash on something substantial like his platform and where his numbers are)
Mulcair was deputy of the party representing one side of it, and the comments about how he said "no" to unions was also silly. I don't feel like making other points at the moment, especially when you decode some of his interviews. I remember one where we said something along the lines of 'no I don't want to move to the centre, but the centre to the ndp' and then one question later said 'A doer styled government is exactly what I want'. And since Doer is an open advocate of the third way(or was? this may have changed) this implies he wants a centre leaning government. Etc.
I couldn't agree more, that Mulcair's social democracy is more technocratic than rooted in the grassroots struggle. I still think that he and Nash would easily win us a majority, and I like his support for National Daycare, Pharmacare, progressive taxation and his CPP policy seems pretty good.
Unfortunately this is the problem.
Exactly. His "I won't be beholden to the unions" line was cheap and opportunistic.
And Gary Doer governed to the right of Bob Rae in Ontario, who Mulcair has attacked from the right ("can't run the night shift at Burger King.")
The more I think about it the more I believe Romeo is the right choice for the NDP. It just seems to make sense that a party that considers itself to be progressive would want to have a First Nations person living in 24 Sussex. Forget about worrying about Harper and his band of bullies, and remain true to the spirit that the NDP purports to contain.
Now, that, I dispute. As Thomas Walkom wrote in Rae Days, in one term Rae almost destroyed the party for a generation.
Doer didn't tell the party executive and the labour movement to go to hell. In fact he maintained solidarity and got re-elected twice.
Ummmmmmmm... that's the Council's power, not the Leader. The Constitution of the NDP gives no powers to the Dear Leader - let alone the Beloved Candidates.
So, why are the candidates proposing policy... and why are babblers cheering them on and micro-analyzing their policy pronouncements?
It is getting a little tiresome to read over and over that Mulcair is anti-union because he opposed the 25% labour carve-out. This idea has been refuted repeatedly on Babble but Topp's apologists keep resurrecting it with a pejorative spin.
For hopefully the last time, let me explain what happened:
1. The previous convention voted overwhelmingly to abolish the carve-out in favour of a purely one-member-one-vote system.
2. At the Federal Council meeting in September to set out the rules for the leadership vote, Topp's forces attempted to resurrect the carve-out, relying on some ambiguous wording in the party constitution that arguably gave the Counil power to determine the voting procedure.
3. Mulcair and most of the Council opposed this and it failed to pass.
4. Topp wanted to do this because he perceived that an enhanced labour vote would be to his advantage.
Topp was attempting a sort of coup to overturn the democratic decision of the convention. When he lost, his people put out the misleading narrative that Mulcair is anti-labour because he stood behind that democratic decision.
It was the same kind of smear as Topp's people attempted in propagating the narrative that Mulcair doesn't play welll with others. False, misleading and politically motivated.
Happily, these tactics have deservedly hurt Topp much more than Mulcair.
Wilf: do they have anti-scab legislation in Manitoba yet?
http://winnipeglabour.ca/sept2.shtml
Mulcair indeed attacked the Rae government from the right with his "Burger King" comment. Rae's biggest problem was not deficit spending, if he had insisted on balanced budgets the situation would have been worse.
I'm not at all saying that supporting OMOV makes one "anti-union" or even saying Mulcair is anti-union. I'm criticizing his crass opportunism in playing into the "too dominated by the unions" line of the MSM, which is one of the biggest right-wing smears against the NDP.
So it would have been better if Rae had balanced the budget faster (and inflicted even more pain in a recession)?
I don't think Topp or Mulcair covered themselves with glory with their comments on the labour carve-out (Topp in favour and Mulcair against when both should have stayed out of the discussion as potential candidates).
If you go back and read the original story, Mulcair is quoted as saying,"Why not let the membership decide?"
Can anyone explain how that is "anti-union"?
LP - I get it. It's a point. It's not a very big point. How Mulcair, or any of the other candidates, deals with workers remains to be seen. It cannot IMO be sussed out by what may or may not be an opportunistic remark early in the campaign. The Charest government (of which Mulcair was a minister) and the Romanow government (of which Topp was a strategist) both did pretty bad things to the unions and the workers. This race, like elections generally, is unfortunately a "least of evils" contest. As such, it's important to neither overstate nor understate reality. Just my 2 cents.
Let's hope it doesn't come down to a "least of evils" contest :-(
That seems to be too common in western democracies these days. And with that, it's no wonder so many people refuse to vote.