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NDP Leadershp #106

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Wilf Day
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Joined: Oct 31 2002
February 24, 2012 - 1:05pm
#91

This smells like a Jewish-conspiracy theory:

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/derrick/2012/02/following-money-bay-street-backing-thomas-mulcair

Quote:
Schwartz and Munk were joined by a number of other Onex executives in contributing to Mulcair's campaign. Many of them gave money on the same date, December 14 . . .

Schwartz, as it happens, is also among the most prominent and influential backers in Canada of Israeli policies of militarism and occupation. Schwartz and his wife, Chapters-Indigo CEO Heather Reisman, founded the Heseg Foundation for Lone Soldiers, which provides money to cover tuition and living expenses for non-Israelis who serve in the Israeli army. Schwartz and Reisman have made very public their approval of aggressive and hawkish actions by the Israeli government.

I will bite my tongue.

Quote:
In 2008, Mulcair was quoted as saying he was "an ardent supporter of Israel in all situations and in all circumstances." On the leadership campaign trail, he has tried to defuse controversy by denying any bias on the Middle East and stating that he adheres to NDP policy on the issue. Mulcair's donors list would seem to cast doubt on these carefully delivered assurances of even-handedness on the issue of Israel/Palestine.

Non sequitur. One can be an ardent supporter of both Israel and Palestine. Brian Topp is:

Quote:

I think it is quite appropriate to support Israel, just as I think it's appropriate to support Palestine. . . . 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. . . We had two sister parties present 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 on for the resumption of peace talks. . . That's who we should stand with, people who are trying to find peace in the region.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1134802--ndp-leadershi...

Catchfire wrote:

The biggest available swing vote that could lead the party to power is the 39% of voters who chose to stay at home.

Quite right.

Stockholm wrote:
That's a good column by Wells. I don't totally agree with him though - there are a few NDP paths to power. One is to squeeze more out of what's left of the Liberal vote (i.e. push them from 19% down to 14 or 15% and have the NDP be the beneficiary and go from 31% to 35%). Another step is to try to erode the tory vote a bit and hive off a point or two from Tory/NDP switchers. A third step is for the Liberals do give us a hand by reinventing themselves as a rightwing pro-business socially liberal party and let them go after the "soft Tory" vote.

All true. But the Liberal vote may well go 83% to us, 17% to the Conservatives. Cut the Liberal vote in half, and on the 2011 boundaries the NDP gains 31 seats while the Conservatives gain 6 and the Liberals are wiped out. Now add some non-voters and it starts to happen, even without the Conservatives losing a single vote.

http://esm.ubc.ca/CA15/forecast.php

Rebecca West wrote:
Peggy Nash was elected to the House the same year Jack Layton was - in 2004, the year after Layton won the 2003 leadership race.

Actually she lost in 2004. She won in 2006. Then she lost in 2008 but won the seat back in 2011. Oddly her bio mentions no party activity before 2004, although there may have been some. I mention this because Mulcair's party bio starts in 2007; is one as relevant as the other?

http://peggynash.ca/2012/peggy-nash/


socialdemocrati...
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Joined: Jan 10 2012
February 24, 2012 - 1:04pm
#92

writer wrote:

Unionist wrote: "Do they have specially coloured membership cards depending on which candidate you have paid to have the privilege of voting for?"

In the miraculous age of the computer, there are other ways to track this stuff. Go to each campaign's website. Click the "join" prompt. You will see that each one leads to its own designated sign-up page for the individual candidate. (Or you did up until the weekend deadline.) A similar effort was made to organize write-in forms. Campaigns submitted them in a way that ensured they'd be able to track and communicate with their designated members.

It's even simpler than that. They have membership signups at every campaign event. There's no doubt that when they sign up a guy at a Topp event or a Mulcair event, there's someone counting the number of signups.


dacckon
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Joined: May 19 2011
February 24, 2012 - 1:08pm
#93

I do hope that the candidates still push for people to join after the deadline. We could use the revenue against the tories and the liberals.


socialdemocrati...
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Joined: Jan 10 2012
February 24, 2012 - 1:11pm
#94

Stockholm wrote:
The only thing I'm not crazy about (and this is just my own personal bias here) is how Mulcair always makes his main priority environmental sustainability and global warming - and find the environment to be a really boring issue that I suspect makes most peoples eyes glaze over. I wish he would put more emphasis on living standards.

The two most charismatic people in the race (IMO) are Mulcair and Cullen. And both of their expertise is mainly on environmental issues. They can't help it if they keep talking about it: when your main tool is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. It's disappointing, but not entirely suprising, that Mulcair's main vehicle for revenue is cap-and-trade.

For any other candidate to catch on, they don't even need to emerge as the most charismatic. They just have to hammer on unemployment and underemployment the way that Martin Singh talks about pharmacare. They'd have my vote in a heartbeat.


nicky
Online
Joined: Aug 3 2005
February 24, 2012 - 1:32pm
#95

North Star, Sagansh has not endorsed anyone to my knowledge. You have perhaps misread this from the Dewar campaign:

padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;">@PaulDewar

Thanks to prominent First Nations leaders Lewis Cardinal & Edith Loring-Kuhanga for supporting me pauldewar.ca/content/promin…#ndpldr #ndp

 


nicky
Online
Joined: Aug 3 2005
February 24, 2012 - 2:15pm
#96

I understand from my friends in the Toronto Mulcair campaign that they are hosting a debate watching party this Sunday at Toby's, 411 College St West, (just east of Bathurst.)I think the debate starts at 3 pm Toronto time.

All interested persons are welcome, regardless of their leadership preferences. 

 


Howard
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Joined: Aug 31 2011
February 24, 2012 - 2:13pm
#97

North Star wrote:

Spin this Mulcair supporters:

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/derrick/2012/02/following-money-bay-street-backing-thomas-mulcair

I was willing to give Mulcair a certain benefit of the doubt, but this isn't very helpful.

That article creates doubts, kind of like Brian Topp's fundraiser at the Empire Club and with Bay Street Lawyers caused me worry that the lobbyists are already getting to him, but it doesn't prove anything. For one, if you look at Mulcair's record he has actually voted against those donors interests. In the case of the Barrick Gold exec, Mulcair voted in favour of the Corporate Accountability of Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries Act, which Barrick strenuously opposed. With the exception of the unsourced, unattributed Mulcair quote about being "an ardent supporter of Israel in all situations and in all circumstances," (which means what exactly?) Mulcair has always spoken in favour of a two-state solution with Canada returning to its "honest broker" role.


Lou Arab
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Joined: Jul 25 2001
February 24, 2012 - 2:31pm
#98

NorthReport wrote:

This Topp bad, or Mulcair bad, is quite frankly getting more than a little boring. Both of them are excellent candidates as well as are many others in the race.

What he said.

I've been reading the last few threads with dread.  I honestly don't know why I do.  It's just a lot of petty sniping that hasn`t helped me make up my mind at all.

The candidates, for the most part, have conduced themselves well.  There has been the odd swipe - and that's ok.  Some of us want to see how campaigns can take (and throw) a punch.  I find it laughable anyone would call these campaigns 'negative.'  You want negative - go look at the GOP primary race.  That's negative.  This race doesn't even rise to the level of good natured taunting on the basketball court.

And does anyone really think deciding who to vote for based on what one phone caller, or rumours of what one team or another are whispering is a good use of your ballot?  Really?  We had dozens of posts about the fact Niki Ashton accused Mulcair of telling people she is signing up members for him.  That doesn't even make sense.  And if it did - where is the evidence?  Why did she brush off the claim that Topp is doing the same, ridiculous thing?  And even if the two camps had some people spreading this nonsense - to what possible gain would they do it? And why should it matter to me one way or the other? It doesn't tell me what policies they will fight for, or which candidate would do better in the House of Commons - or am I missing something?

This stuff won`t change a single vote.  Accept that shit happens on campaigns and stick to your message.  Your candidates will do better for it.


KenS
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Joined: Aug 6 2001
February 24, 2012 - 2:38pm
#99

Howard, and others... you should update at the thread on those Mulcair donations in question. The blog title missed the mark and is somewhat misrepresentative. But there is something of note in this.


Howard
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Joined: Aug 31 2011
February 24, 2012 - 2:39pm
#100

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Catchfire
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Joined: Apr 16 2003
February 24, 2012 - 2:42pm
#101

Lou Arab wrote:
I've been reading the last few threads with dread.  I honestly don't know why I do.  It's just a lot of petty sniping that hasn`t helped me make up my mind at all.

The candidates, for the most part, have conduced themselves well.  There has been the odd swipe - and that's ok.  Some of us want to see how campaigns can take (and throw) a punch.  I find it laughable anyone would call these campaigns 'negative.'  You want negative - go look at the GOP primary race.  That's negative.  This race doesn't even rise to the level of good natured taunting on the basketball court.

And does anyone really think deciding who to vote for based on what one phone caller, or rumours of what one team or another are whispering is a good use of your ballot?  Really?  We had dozens of posts about the fact Niki Ashton accused Mulcair of telling people she is signing up members for him.  That doesn't even make sense.  And if it did - where is the evidence?  Why did she brush off the claim that Topp is doing the same, ridiculous thing?  And even if the two camps had some people spreading this nonsense - to what possible gain would they do it? And why should it matter to me one way or the other? It doesn't tell me what policies they will fight for, or which candidate would do better in the House of Commons - or am I missing something?

This stuff won`t change a single vote.  Accept that shit happens on campaigns and stick to your message.  Your candidates will do better for it.

I liked this post so much I'm reposting it again to end this thread. Thanks Lou. May this sentiment guide the next 106 threads. (*shudder*)


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