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http://accidentaldeliberations.blogspot.com/2012/02/leadership-2012-roun...
Topp canvassers still engaging in Nixonian misstatements:
Topp canvasser to my daughter: "Mulcair has been explicit in wanting to move the #NDP to the right." Explicit?? Like what? #ndpldr
More deceit from the Topp camp:
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Topp canvasser reading script: Mulcair's position on Israel/Palestine is "like Stephen Harper". Total BS, Brian, not cool #ndpldr
I got a live call tonight from the Mulcair campaign. Told them I was considering Topp, to test their spiel. The caller said it was a gamble considering his lack of electoral experience. Nothing worse than that. Just positives about Mulcair. Nice call.
Hmm. It seems in spite of the first actual complaint of the campaign from one candidate, Ashton, about another candidate's camp, Mulcair, using deception to try to win over votes, that some Mulcair fans are still trying to portray the Topp camp as deceitful for the oh-so-heinous crime of describing Mulcair's political position as more to the right than Topp's. Interesting that Martin Lawrence, author and Globe and Mail columnist who has endorsed Mulcair and thinks quite highly of him, likewise described Mulcair as a candidate who wishes to push the NDP to the "moderate centre". Presumably he too is engaging in "Nixonian misstatements" and "deceit".
Also interesting is that when Lawrence Martin described the story of Ashton's complaint about Mulcair's camp, he introduced it by saying, "The NDP leadership race has been a relatively quiet affair to date with little evidence of dirty tricks." Presumably in the eyes of some Mulcair posters here, Lawrence Martin just didn't realize that Topp previously had committed the heinous crime of describing Mulcair as a centrist. Of course, Martin wouldn't see this as a heinous crime because that's also Martin's perception of Mulcair (and I'm guessing pretty well everyone else's too).
*sigh* I had hoped that the Ashton/Mulcair story would cool the mud-throwing jets of some of Mulcair's fans. Ah well. I take solace in the fact that it must mean they're worried. Both Topp and Nash are gaining momemtum, I believe, and that is a good thing.
Like I said, I think Mulcair is happy because he gets to have it both ways. On one hand, all his verifiable policy positions are either cribbed or expansions of the official party platform. On the other hand, all the pundits are calling him the most moderate, most centrist of all the candidates.
Maybe that's what he means when he says he can bring the center to us.
Topp's environmental policy can be described as cribbing the official party policy too (why do people keep confusing policy and platform?), with all of its shortcomings, at least from my point of view. Getting the media to call him centrist is one way of Mulcair bringing the centre to us, I guess.
One of the many ways Mulcairs supporters have a hyped up notion of what Topp is doing. As is often noted here, most of the time Topp is very respectful with and about Mulcair. The reference to disagreements is pretty muted, as it was when Brian came here. There isnt any toe-to-toe. I'm not saying that Topp is not being provacative. He has been.
But there isnt any toe-to-toe, and it is not because of some macho bullshit like 'you bet there wont be, because Mulcair would cut him to pieces.' Mulcair definitely doesnt want toe to toe. And Topp doesnt either. The sharp elbows that get Topp the bully pulpit he needed are judiciously sprinkled around in interviews. Though I can understand that it does not come across that way.
I have never observed this negativity being ascribed to Topp. I've seen him respectfully differentiate himself from the other candidates. I keep waiting to see this aggressive, attack-style politics from him but I haven't yet.
You are right that no one will be spared. But there is being attacked over something we want to do, attacks be damned and/or that it can be a winning issue/initiative; and then there is being attacked because you heedlessly handed material to the Conservatives and/or because you did not take proper preparatory actions.
So, no, the real test is not how good candidates are at deflecting attacks. Thats just one part of it. The other part is to disarm and neutralize the opportunities for attacks. Anticipation. You cant prevent attacks, and dont want to be boxed in by that. But you can minimize the opportunities, or gratuitously create opportunities for your opponent.
9:38
Agreed.
The worst thing (and this isn't that bad) that Topp has done is repeatedly claim that Mulcair wants to move the party to the center. Mulcair has been happy to absorb that attack for the reasons I pointed out above. I actually think Topp keeps raising it not because he thinks it's necessarily true, but because he wants to bait Mulcair into responding, so Topp can contrast his vision with Mulcair's more strongly.
Comparable to that... Topp also mentioned Dewar's shitty French and him picking an Anglophone deputy leader. He also said "... but it's ultimately up to the members." That's arguably some tough talk, and even some hard-nosed strategy. But it's a far cry from "negative".
I think he's doing it because Mulcair wants to move the party to the right. But that's only because that's what I believe.
I don't personally think anything Topp has done in the air war is innapropriate, but that doesn't mean he isn't going negative. Every good politician needs the ability to go on the attack, the more troubling aspect of Topp's jabs from the first debate onward is how inneffective they've been. I'm concerned because that "quote-unquote" shtick is not going to cut it in question period, when reporters follow up with a quick lexis search to discover the Prime Minister never actually said that.
I do also think the negativity is filtering down to his organizers, which is why you're getting repeated stories of phone canvassing going embarassingly wrong. Candidates have every right to draw contrasts on CBC interviews but lets not push that fighting directly into peoples homes, that kind of infighting will sour the whole Party on the process.
Or Lawrence Martin taking Niki's statements completely out of context.
Er, then where are the Mulcair supporters getting it? Or is their negativity more "grassroots"?
I've seen little evidence of any negativity form Mulcair canvassers, unless you're talking about Babble and this place will always be a seething war of each against all because it's the internet.
Well there is Ashton's official complaint, for one.
Oh it's official now, has she registered her protest with the Hague?
I'll condemn any Mulcair supporter actually guilty of what Ashton is ascribing to them (and I believe her insofar as there must have been some inciting incident), but the story is still incredibly vague as to what happened, I certainly don't see anything suggesting these were comments from a Mulcair organized phone bank.
Wtf?
The NDP Road Show Matters
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/editorials/the-ndp-road-show-ma...
"The federal New Democratic Party's travelling road show rolls into Winnipeg on Sunday, when the seven leadership candidates are to square off in the latest in a series of uninspiring debates that have largely failed to generate a conversation among Canadians about the future of the country. The contest has not generated the kind of lift in national interest the party wanted following the sudden death last August of Jack Layton, who was credited with achieving the remarkable NDP breakthrough in Quebec in the federal election.
According to a Nik Nanos poll in January, 25 per cent of Canadians supported the party, a four point decline from December, but the loyalty of Quebec voters had slipped to 29 per cent from a high of 50 per cent prior to Mr. Layton's death. The absence of a full-time leader (and the tepid performance of interim leader Nycole Turmel) are undoubtedly factors in the NDP's relative decline, but it's far from clear the party's fortunes could rebound following the March leadership convention in Toronto..."
LeadNow says by Saturday at midnight, the deadline to join the NDP and vote in the leadership race, 5,500 people committed to join the NDP by clicking the campaign's links to the party membership page, to support cooperation for electoral reform.
Not all of them will vote for Cullen. Still, it could help put him in contention.
A click through isn't the same as joining. Still, who knows?
and the only guy likely to give us that big bounce is mulcair. oh and in quebec, an 85% familiarity with a very closely correlated approval rating.
If we elect a bold leader with foresight and vision, like Nash or Topp, who like Jack won't hide social democracy in the closet, then we'll certainly regain and win the next election.
Its not clear to me that any of the candidates are particularly bold leaders or have demonstrated much foresight and vision, nor is it clear to me that any of the candidates are trying to hide social democracy in a closet.
Catch fire and Mark, you are just not looking at the evidence here. Topp has repeatedly gone negative.
A couple examples: Nash is connected to Hargrove. She doesn't have much experience in Parliament. Mulcair is only a pretend New Democrat to whom he attributes made up quotes.
It is obvious that his phone bank uses a prepared script because we get repeated reports of it. Whenever a preference is indicated for another candidate, his canvassers rubbish him or her. This has been repeatedly documented here on Babble and for you to say there is no evidence of it is next to delusional.
Is Topp really doing this badly in Saskatchewan despite backing from Romanow and Calvert?
"NDP candidate Thomas Mulcair is touting some “high-profile” supporters in B.C. — see below — following his latest jaunt to the West Coast. While establishment favourite Brian Topp scooped up the lion’s share of big-name B.C. support early on, momentum does appear on the side of the Quebec MP and deputy party leader nationally. One of the fundamental problems with Topp’s candidacy is that he required the race to be a showdown between him and Mulcair. With nine original entrants in the race, and now seven, it has become impossible for Topp to try to put himself on the same level as Mulcair. The latter is by far the biggest name in the race, while Topp was a complete unknown. While the early endorsements from Broadbent, Romanow, Davies et al were impressive, Topp’s status has been obscured by the presence of credible candidates Paul Dewar, Peggy Nash and Nathan Cullen.
One other anecdote about Topp. I just spoke to an old Saskatchewan NDP friend who said Topp remains decidedly unpopular there due to his prickly reputation when he was Romanow’s right-hand man. My friend, who is undecided in the race, figures Topp is in fourth place among the voting members in that province. Those who do support Topp there insist he’s “mellowed” since his time working for Romanow. Saskatchewan once had a third of the party’s members, now it’s less than 10 per cent, so lack of support there isn’t necessarily fatal. But it doesn’t help his reputation when former staffers in Regina are bad-mouthing him."
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/02/23/62654/
The observations in the second paragraph are similar to some expressed by our departed colleague Malcolm before our vigilant moderators drove him into exile.
But is Topp really fourth? Can someone from Saskatchewan shed some light on the state of the race there?
Alice Funcke interviewed on NDP membership totals:
http://watch.ctv.ca/news/#clip623401