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It is sad. I'm not even supporting Mulcair, in fact I am kind of floundering around trying to figure out whom to support, but even I can see that Topp just went way over the line. This is not leadership, it is instead the complete absence of any sense of the role a leader should play. Very disappointed.
Heh, it's actually kind of hilarious, mixed with ghoulish, the way so many people here invoke Jack's spirit, in "God Bless America" fashion, to bolster whatever little argument or whatever little leader they'd like to support.
Never forget that Jack anointed Nycole Turmel!
That should do it.
I am pretty sure that like a lot of other things that get people exercised around here, most NDP members are not going to see Topp's pointy digs at Mulcair as something they viscerally react to.
I still take the amount of it around here as significant in itself. I think the jury is very much out whether Topp will in the end pay more of a price for his campaign style than the benefits he gets from it. But if it does end up being more off-putting than not, then my hope is that over the longer term this will be our introduction to more open and expansive internal debate. It does not need to be all pointy. But if you are going to have fruitful climate of debate, none of it being pointy is not a good sign.
Topp isn't just attacking Mulcair, he's throwing jabs in all directions, at Dewar, Cullen and to a lesser extant Nash as well, and weirdest of all carrying these attacks over into people's homes. I don't consider his attacks overly worrisome because they aren't particularly effective, but calling members in their homes and trying to argue them out of liking anyone not named Brian Topp may start to sour some of our membership on the Party as a whole.
There is a bit of a contradiction. You said, at least in pronciple, that you'll wait to see what Topp said. But you also said he's lying.
Anyway, I hold no one to that standard. Its not realistic. Topp could know that the reporter seriously exagerated to the point of misrepresenting, but it is generally wisest to let sleeping dogs lie. He may well have said just that, but the fact he chooses to not say anything cannot be taken as proof he pretty much said that.
Now there's mystery for you.
Brian Topp says its a problem that Mulcair is like Jack Layton.
Who would have thunk it?
I was pretty happy to hear about the membership numbers. However, what I found most interesting were the numbers that we didn't get to hear. On The National tonight, they mentioned that they asked the Liberals and the Conservatives for their membership numbers, but they (the parties that is) didn't say what they were. My fisrt thought was that they must be lower than the NDP numbers, because I figured if they were larger, they would want people to know that. That's just a wild guess, and it may be wrong, but I would be interested to know where the NDP stands compared to the other parties.
Thats premature of you, saying its a bad strategy.
What kind of judege would you be of what works? None of us are. What works remains to be seen.
And I dont remember anyone disagreeing that Brian is on the attack. Some see only that. Some dont.
I dont read the Cons refusal as being afraid to show. They just dont see an advantage.
The Liberal numbers have been discussed plenty, through their Convention, by the Libs themselves. It isnt pretty, but they arent hiding. Party numbers are a shell game. This is about the only time ours can be trusted. but there are lots of numbers out ther for reporters to get.
There has been some loose talk in the media about BC and Ontario labour (that is, Topp and Nash) versus the NDP's non-labour Quebec caucus.
So here they are:
Nycole Turmel, long-time PSAC officer.
Guy Caron, staffer with Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union.
Alexandre Boulerice, staffer for the Quebec division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
Anne Minh-Thu Quach, three years on the regional teacher’s union executive committee and represented it (when she was elected) on the general council of the central CSQ.
François Pilon, union local vice-president for seven years.
Tyrone Benskin, National Vice President of ACTRA.
Claude Patry, president of large union local.
Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, co-founder of her union local, union officer.
Robert Aubin, union rep for his high school, negotiated four collective agreements.
Jean-François Larose, Vice-President of his local union.
Sylvain Chicoine, working two days a week for his union for six years and member of the union executive.
That's 11 of 58. Did I miss any?
That's not what makes me hesitate. It's his absence of Quebec support, coupled with his French being halfway between Dewar's and Niki Ashton's. The co-operation offer to the Liberals would put them on the spot. Unless Bob Rae can swing them around to Cullen's terms including proportional representation -- which Rae supports but not enough other Liberals do, yet -- the Liberals will reject it and Cullen could say "we tried."
http://briantopp.ca/news/rod-murphy-former-mp-churchill-mb-supports-brian-topp
He won't be the only one from Churchill, if Topp is the second choice of many Ashton voters.
I just played a gig in Denare Beach near Creighton. The people I talked to had Ashton as their first choice but Topp was not well liked. Anecdotal but still reality. It will probably depend on who Ashton throws her support behind. She could pull some weight in the final push for votes.
Just to toss into the hopper:
The only way Topp EVER had of winning this is by distinguishing himself from the other candidates. Every candidate wants to distinguish/identify themself. For Topp it was much more essential. [And it was probably always known it would come down to Mulcair.]
Early in the campaign- for months- Brian worked at distinguishing himself in exactly the way the vast majority here expect: "here are my policies, this is who I am, arent we all nice people, my colleagues in the race are all wonderful."
And what did that get him, and us? A conconsensus view that there is little daylight between the candidates.
Well, duh.
So if you are the Topp campaign, what do you do? Its obviously time to take the gloves off. Otherwise, you don't stand a chance.
And if you are the campaign and making a realistic assessment, how do you look at how this is going to go and how to do it? Believe me, they knew this wasnt going to be liked. The hope, and its a reasonable expectation, is that there will be a settling down after the initial reaction. So if you are going to do this, you get it done quick and over with... so that with the large number of people who did not like it, there is still time for them to hear your message.
There will be a substantial number of people who are so offended that they will never consider you. But the bulk of them disliked you from the day you announced, and have always been effectively out of your reach.
Brain Topp has a month to reach the rest. And if he had not first got their attention he would would have been giving up. And none of these candidates is a quitter.
And that does not mean that Brian Topp says "well, if I can only win with scorched earth, then scorched earth it is."
There is no scorched earth. That is pure hyperbole. Scorched earth is when you do permanent damage to opponents and the party. As with the Republicans, where things are repeated a thousnad times that will stick on the winner of the nomination.
Brain Topp's attacks will do no lasting damage to anyone, nor is the climate in the party being damaged. A LOT of you here do not like the climate here and now. But thats different.
And Brian Topp is live on Babble at 2:30 EST.
You can poke him yourself!
If you read the threads, the mods discourage new questions [that were not put in earlier]. There is good reason for that, the discussion is really fast and lags anyway. So people throwing in totally new stuff just does not work.
But I would be very surprised if Brian does not initiate taking this on. So you can count on your chance to poke and probe on this.
Ken to be blunt I don't know where you get your strategic sense or your own sense of expertise, but it really ain't much. Topp could have distinguished himself in any number of ways. Topp's extreme problem though is his inability to close the deal, his inexpereince and inability at retail politics and to be able to connect with people. He is ill at ease in his skin in a number of the situations you find yourself as a leader.
You say you don't know many people who have been turned off by Topp's style, well then I would encourage you to get out more. I have spoken to a number of New Democrats who have had that exact experience. Most people I know where looking at Topp with enormous good will. People wanted to like and support him. I know early on I figured I would end up supporting him. But for a good many people he has blown it. Now he is lashing out in a desperate bid to cover up his lack of skills and abilities in the leadership column. Don't get me wrong I think Topp has enormous skills and abilities in certain areas, but they are not leadership related. To me Topp is like the sound guy. Unbelievable technical skills that makes the musicians sound magical. But there is a reason he's a the sound board and not on stage.
Well BA, I get out and about with New Dems and I am not hearing that unless of course, the negative talk is initiated by someone and it thus becomes "self fulfilling profacy". So for a good many people is rhetoric unless you liked to back that up with "facts".
I suppose that I was influenced by the support Topp received by some of my very fav and trusted people in the NDP.
It's true that Thomas Mulcair hasn't promise war, privatization, and public private partnerships.
And nobody's accusing him of promising those things.
The concern folks have isn't that he's "promised" to move the party rightward, but that he will.
Remember that when he was running for Labour Party leader, Tony Blair never promised war, privatization, and public private partnerships either.
There is little doubt that Gerry Scott has a LOT of experience in political campaigns. But with all of the "negative" stuff happening in the Topp campaign, I have been left wondering if this was in large part due to Topp's campaign team. I am pretty sure that Gerry was a key campaign operative on Bob Skelly's leadership campaign way back in the 1980s. I remember the convention, which was full of the drama that you get with a delegated convention - it culminated with a dramatic parade lead by King who fell off the final ballot. Skelly and King had made a mutual support pact and King was red faced and livid that he ended up the loser supporting Skelly. I have read some references to Yvonne Cocke here (who I got to meet at her house - she was a wonderful warm person). But in politics, her contribution to the party was denigrated because she and her husband supported Vickers (the runner up outsider). The most notable souvenir from that convention were the buttons put out by the Skelly campaign "Unplug the Cocke Machine". (featuring a Coke logo). It was a witty and rather masterful stroke - a classic negative campaign tactic that probably helped assure Skelly's victory.
That's a classic strawman negative argument, TheArchitect...
I can assume that anyone will do anything if I don't take them for their word. You have no reason not to take Mulcair at his word, and your last post is baseless fearmongering.
At this stage at least, i see no "scorched earth" if mulcair wins. If the worst thing that has been said about Mulcair by another leadership candidate is that he's too moderate - i don't see how that hurts Mulcair with general public in the 2015 election.
Ha! Touche. Way to burst the internal NDP bubble Mr. Swedish Capital.
I guess it is true, the things Topp is accusing Tom of - even if hyperbolized and even outright untrue, are actually net positives in the eyes of the very people we are trying to attract in order to form government in 2015. Point for Mulcair, lol.
The only caveat being the nonsense about privatisation and war. That's just crazy 'out-there' stuff and is disappointing.
NDP Leadership Candidate Brian Topp: We Want to Win for a Purpose
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1134802--ndp-leadershi...
On Canada's Policy Toward Israel:
"I think it is quite appropriate to support Israel, just as I think it's appropriate to support Palestine. That's my essential difference with the Harper government.
Friends of Israel, like me, have the right to argue with the government of Israel when it is on the wrong path as I believe it is here. The occupation must end at some point. Construction of settlements in occupied Palestine must end. Terror must stop. Hamas must change its views about the existence of Israel. There are bad actors on all sides who are presenting obstacles to peace. So the issue is who do we stand with? Do we stand with people who are obstacles to peace or do we stand with those who are trying to find it? That's my argument with the Harper government.
I was party president so I got to be our delegate at Socialist International. I attended the meeting last summer in Athens Greece. We were there for about four days and at least two of those four were consumed by a discussion on the Middle East. We had two sister parties trying to work together. The Israeli Labour Party, represented by some of its veterans, people going back to the foundations of Israel, and Fatah, also our sister party, with people in it who had been in that struggle.
And they were working together through this conference trying to find a common statement in which they would and we would call for the resumption of peace talks. On the basis of a two-state solution, two recognized states both free from terror, living in recognized borders at peace with each other. And they couldn't, they couldn't find the words. But they were trying.
That's who we should stand with, people who are trying to find peace in the region. Blessed are the peacemakers, and that's where we should be and not in joining the voices that are preventing peace..."
More 'peace' pap. Surprised to hear Abbas's Fatah wasn't up for a deal with the ILP of 'bonesmasher' Rabin. Sounds like the NDP were in good 'socialist' company at SI.