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HM. there's some leaps in logic and connections that just sound reasonable.
That does not make for a reasonable insinuation of stirring up bad blood- ie, something that lasts much longer than a leadership race.
You seem to forget that active NDP supporters are volunteers. People put time into things because they are worth them. There are more people for which that is condidtional than those for which it is essentially not conditional.
Any figure running for the leadership who is polarizing is going to lead to some volunteers feeling that the party lead by candidate X is a party they question they want to do anything for. More often than not they dont leave the party, they pull back. They usually come back to being more active either when they decide the new Leader is not as bad as they thought, or time goes by and among other possibilities that leader is gone.
A lot of you think that Mulcair being polarizing is totally undeserved- that it is only that 'he isnt one of us' stuff. Well, I've never had any time for that 'not one of us' crap... and I still think Mulcair has earned being a polarizing figure. I guarantee it would be there just as much whether or not the Topp campaign chose to ride it.
But my honest opinion is that I have never paid attention to people saying they will leave the party or back if X happens. I take it seriously. But they do or they dont. I really dislike gratuitously, or more often heedlessly alienating ANY constituency in the big tent. But I'm also not into catering to any of them.
Dippers choose to do what they will, and if some people dont like it, thats life.
Yes, I've seen that quote several times, and have no reason to doubt it. And I also understand he let it lapse at some point, which is quite understandable: he was only 20 years old in 1974. He was called to the bar in 1979. In 1983 he became Director of Legal Affairs at Alliance Quebec. He probably didn't hold a card in any party, federal or Quebec, at that point. He was President of the Office des professions du Québec (1987 to 1993), again perhaps incompatible with partisan activity.
In 1994 he was recruited to run for the Quebec Liberals, and became a member of that party. I'm guessing (do we have to guess?) that he did not join any federal party from 1994 until 2007? Has he explained why?
Considering Mulcair's maternal great-grandfather was former Quebec Premier Honoré Mercier, he's hardly shy about political activity.
These are about the same as my thoughts as well. We put alot of importance on who the Leader is going to be, but no matter who they are, they're going to go up against things that they can't really control or predict. Perhaps by 2015, the Harper Conservatives will go through a major scandal that all but means they'll lose and the NDP will win in a cake walk no matter who is leader. Or perhaps the economy will suddenly rebound and that makes a Conservative Victory all but certain. I think it was SDM who said that predicting who the best leader is in 2012 for an election that will be held in 2015 is hard. Say what you will about American Politics, at least they get to pick their presidential candidates the same year as their elections!
I think the best we can really do is use all the best information we have, and then decide on our own who we think is the best person to lead the party. And then when all this is over, we have a nice big group hug. = D
I doubt any of the candidates are especially polarizing to most of the members, let alone the millions of NDP voters. There may be some drawn out tough battles among people on babble, but the race itself has been extremely tame with few policy differences compared to the Liberals, let alone the past 30 years of U.S. primaries for both major parties. Even the babble spats are nothing compared to what I saw from observing the U.S. primaries.
I have zero doubt that the party will unify around the leader no matter what.*
(*Assuming that the debates don't get any tougher, which they might. And discounting the obligatory protest from the self professed socialist caucus.)
"Don't let them tell you it can't be done." Opponents in this race should openly talk about about their differing visions for leadership, which includes critically assessing the other candidates' visions. Jack, unlike Harper, was never a control freak who wouldn't allow people to express differences of opinion.
Nathan Cullen's Bid to Lead NDP Gets Social Media Boost
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/02/17/nathan-cullens-bid-to-lead-ndp-gets-s...
"Two big online advocacy organizations are giving a potentially big boost to Nathan Cullen's underdog campaign to become NDP leader. Avaaz and Leadnow.ca are promoting more cooperation among Canada's 'progressive' political forces to defeat PM Stephen Harper's Conservatives.
And now they're urging new members - almost 700,000 strong - to join federal opposition parties in a bid to influence their agendas - including their choice of leader.."
And George Soros, had much the same idea..
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/avaaz
It is a legitimate question how continuous his membership is. As for the rest, you are just guessing.
I just figure that if you're a New Democrat, you're not filled with the same sense of entitlement that the Liberals have. Nobody joins the NDP because they expect an easy ride to a kushy government job, or even because they love power. Being a New Democrat means fighting a long hard battle, and we've never really come close to winning it in all of Canadian history. The idea that someone would blow apart the caucus because they didn't win just doesn't fit with the stage that our party is at, and the type of person we've always attracted. I could see the caucus blowing apart because of an ideological dispute, but there haven't been any major policy wedges.
Perhaps the only thing that could divide us are geographic issues: Quebec versus the ROC, or urban versus rural. But that's not going to happen in the leadership race. That's going to happen when Harper or Rae start looking for wedges.
Our unity will be fine, at least after the convention.
If urban versus rural hasn't blown us apart yet, it likely never will.
Making statements and 'just observations' based on one's convenient notions of what motivates people is your special department.
I think I made clear to just about everyone [who is bothering reading] except you that I understand very well that it is not going over very well.
The difference I was pointing out is that the Topp supporters here just accept what clearly is not going over well. We dont argue it.
Ditto for the Nash supporters, who there are more of, while harsh things have been said about Peggy's capabilities. And all the rest of the candidates.
Except the Mulcair supporters, who never let anything go by.
And by the way, I think it is super ironic that you repeatedly made the not veiled comments about other campaigns "sending people" here and other social media sites. You think it means something that you've heard it from supporters of camps that do it and 'of course we dont do that.' I do not doubt the truth of all that.
But if people are wondering whether there are plants here, they would make their surmises based on what they see. And you fit the bill to a tee. I think someone else may have already said that. But it amuses me.
I think you can leave that qualifier off. Even if the rhetoric gets considerably more heated, its over when its over. There will be personal wounds to heal, and some very active volunteers will leave being active. But that is always happening, we just notice it at times like this.
There is zero chance of the kind of running internal wars the Libs have. The maximum effect will be possibly some egos so bruised and animosities that dont go away enough so that some people cannot contribute to their full potential. Someone may even leave entirely to go off and do something else. These things should be expected. You can strive and hope to do much better, but it is unrealistic to expect better than that. Its also unrealistic, or not understanding, to see that sort of thing as signs of an 'internal war' or something like that.
The NDP is much more at risk for serious effects from [continued] intellectual laziness and unwillingness to have contention over alternate visions, than it is at risk for a leadership race sowing the seeds of internal wars.
[And various internal consitituencies being quick to spout off over things not going their way does not count as contention over alternate visions. What we lack is contention over articulated visions. What we get is lots of rhetoric that sound like barricades will be going up if we do not get/keep X or Y. Thats not the same thing.]
A Topp-Mulcair alliance?
http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/02/20/ndp-leadership-toward-a-topp-mulcair-...
The stakes are high for all of us, and whoever we support, and those of us who still do not know who we will support.
But someone it is only dissing on Mulcair that REQUIRES answers from supporters.
Well's guesses are reasonable, but they are a hash.
One big reason, is the Quebec MPs notwithstanding, and even allowing for their collective influence on the voting, I dont think the Mulcair/Topp combination is one of the biggest #1/#2 choice combinations, even though there a few on this board. But even more reason, being #2 to Mulcair does no candidate sweet fuck all. And if you are on the #1 side, thats all that matters [and keeping it that way].
I think there are other reasons that a Topp Mulcair alliance is feasible- like some of the other combinations are.
Martin Singh just put out an email claiming he's signed up 6,000 supporters and that that represents ~25% of the new memberships, in other words about 24,000 new members in the party.
The only 'alliances' between anyone and Mulcair, is with the other one dropping out.
And dont rule out Topp Cullen- perhaps more likely because it could be either of them deferring. Cullen and Mulcair being friendly in the debates is no more determining than Mulcair and Topp being virtually always pointy. But I dont think anyone dropping out to support another candidate is likely. Only possible.
The one exception I might make is that if Paul's campaign comes to agree that winning is impossible, then he might be more likely to decide to throw in his lot with someone. But even there, there are plenty of solid internal arguments against doing that. For one thing, I doubt being on the last ballot will be deemed impossible. And if you can get there.... And a lot of candidates are going to be persuaded that no matter their chances they need to say in, and/or they dont see a single other candidate that stands well above the others to them. I couldnt even guess which of this lot is most likely to be like that. The inclinations against dropping out could be especially high for a particular candidate, without it being outwardly obvious.
I really don't think there will be anything remotely resembling a formal alliance between any camps (short of a dropping out and endorsement). I think Boivin was simply asserting her own personal preference, which is a completely rational ranking if her priority is Quebec appeal. Topp couldn't get Boivin to say that if she didn't believe it, even if it somehow fit into some grand 12 dimensional chess strategy of his.
This is a good observation. Not that the leader sets policy, but the candidates ought to be asking the members which direction we want to go. I agree the differences between the candidates haven't been significant enough to make me say "I need to support X" let alone "I can't support Y". Which is valuable, because we ought to have a choice, and debate allows us to reveal the weaknesses in various ideas.
I also agree there's a lot of people blowing up otherwise small issues. I'm not even going to disagree that there are differences, or even that they're somewhat significant. But it keeps telling me that the differences between the candidates -- and maybe even a lot of the members -- is that of strategy and tone, not substance.
I don't expect alliances to play a significant role.
What would they be allying for? I don't really see any massive "anti-..." sentiment. There's some dispassionate anti-Dewar sentiment over his French, some dispassionate anti-Cullen sentiment over his strategy, and a passionate but small sentiment against Mulcair over his perceived neoliberalism. And these sentiments haven't really been echoed or amplified by the candidates.
Plus so many people won't be voting at the convention, let alone in real time. It's likely that voters will go where they want to go at the convention. It's even a possibility the votes will have decided the leader before the convention, and we'll just be waiting.
I was lead to believe that Peggy Nash's campaign has released their poll, but can't find it anywhere. Any ideas where I can find it - sorry if it is easily detectable on a related thread (or, gasp, this one) but I'm home watching a sick little guy so my attention is not undivided.