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algoma falcon, really good point. thing is that manning was the establishment candidate, and day was the candidate from the more "grass-roots" but not radical part of the party. so the equivalent would be something like if topp had managed to become a dominant force and then cullen had won. we're not really in that situation. we're more in the situation back when joe clark (brian topp) was running against a couple partu heavy-weights (nash and dewar) and an insurgent with a lot of support, esp in quebec (mulcair) with an outside chance of a prairie/bc populist taking it (take your pick). the tories ended up with mulroney, won government and forever changed this country. i'm not sure what more to say beyond that.
You might want to check your history. It took them two conventions with two elections in between to get Mulroney, and that was only because Clark couldn't count (hence losing government in a confidence vote). Mulroney's problem in '76 is that he had little growth potential. I don't think the '76 Conservative convention is that similar to our process this time. There were of course two candidates from Quebec with Mulroney not being the one to lead on all ballots but the last one.
I'm not sure if she has any more of a clue than we do.
well, i was collapsing a lot of things into one. plus excluding the fact that mulroney had already lost leadership challenge, and had no seat. the thinking was more about the pc party's coming into a quebec leader and the parallels between where they were at and where we're at now.
and that said, i can't imagine, everything said and done, that we could possibly have another seat-of-his-pants style leader like mulroney in this country (cullen won't win) or that mulcair is anything like him.
I'm pretty sure Chantal was not drawing direct parallels (and neither am I). I just posted it because it was an acknowlegemnet that the "elite commentators" are not very certain how to call this.
In my mind, there really are three "establishment favorites" in this contest, Topp, Mulcair and Nash, and one "David", who is naturally Cullen. But everyone has there own interpretation of this.
;;
Whether or not Mulcair meets expectations depends on what the expectations are in the first place. It is fairly clear from the attacks that he is somewhat ahead; by how much is anyone's guess. It is much less clear who is second, but Topp would have to be leading in Ontario and second in BC to be second overall I think, and whether he has much growth potential depends on whose first choice ballots he is the second choice on. Similarly for Nash, except that she doesn't seem to be even second in BC. Whereas Cullen could be second even if he is leading only in BC, depending on by how much, and not doing all that well elsewhere. Still, I think he is limited by opposition to the cooperation proposal.
To me the big variables are:1,How far ahead is Mulcair on the first ballot? 2. What is Mulcair's growth potential via second and third ballot choices? He has to have one of those in place-a big lead or good growth prospects.
The other belief I have (with zero evidence mind you) is that Cullen's joint proposal will sink him in the end regardless of how he does in the first ballot.
Thanks ffk for starting this
I think the final results will look something like this. It's possible to have a 1st ballot victory, probably a two-ballots vote, and a long-shot possibility of three ballots.
1st - Mulcair
2nd - Cullen
3rd - Nash
4th- Dewar
5th- Topp
6 - Ashton
7 - Singh
PS And more good news for Cullen and Mulcair out today, showing these 2 with the all important momentum.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1147821--ndp-leadership-fundraising-data-shows-the-state-of-the-race
I'm curious now about another issue - what weren't the candidates listed alphabetically on the preferential ballot?
Its probably done randomly to eliminate preferences for one candidate. To really be effective, you would randomize the order in each electronic ballot (also random order in printed ballots), but I don't know if they did that.
On mine, they were. Am I special? (Don't answer that.)
That's fabulous if they have done that. Good on the NDP Head Office
I have a few general predictions:
1) At least three ballots.
2) At least one withdrawal (i.e., someone who is not last on a given ballot will pull out and support another candidate).
3) Topp will not be in the final 3 (I was tempted to say final 4 but pulled that punch).
I think it will go something like this:
First Ballot: Singh eliminated
Second Ballot: Ashton eliminated, Topp withdraws (supports Nash)
Third Ballot: Dewar eliminated (supports Mulcair)
Fourth Ballot: Cullen eliminated (stays neutral, but bulk of his votes go to Mulcair)
Fifth Ballot: Mulcair wins over Nash
It's feasible that Topp and Nash are flipped in my prediction, but I think that if neither withdraws early, both will be gone by the time voting starts on ballot four.
I'd be surprised. Many of his endorsers, especially from Quebec, would go to Mulcair. He'd have to stay neutral.
I don't think staying neutral is even going to be possible, as long as you're in the room people will be taking your every glance as an indication one way or the other and of course you'll be expected to cast a ballot. Of course they can make statements like "I suggest in the strongest possible terms that my supporters follow me to this or that camp" or "I fully release my delegates but as a private member I intend to vote for this person every member should be free to make up their own mind." I'd wager you'll be hearing more of the latter type of statement than the former though because due to the advance ballot candidates will have little control over their supporters second choices and no politician likes to look foolish.
For the same reason I highly doubt anyone (except maybe Ashton) will be withdrawing before mathematical elimination since the high percentage of advance ballots means almost everyone's share of the vote will go up each round they're in (in order to maximize influence you might as well cross the floor with as many voters as you can).
yep. i have a close family member working directly on the topp campaign, and he's going mulcair second. i'd also be VERY surprised if dewar endorsed anyone at all, let alone mulcair.
I have to agree. I think that despite the antipathy between the protagonists - you might be surprised at how many Topp voters will have Mulcair as a (distant) second choice. i think a lot of people who support Topp also are very concerned about maintaining support in Quebec and would hold their noses and preference Mulcair ahead of all the other candidates.
I will remind people for upteenth time that the vast majority of members who are voting in advance preferentially do not share the antipathies that some of the candidates and campaign teams may have for one another. Back in 2009 when Andrea Horwath was running for the ONDP leadership, the conventional wisdom was that because there was so much hostility between the Prue and Tabuns camps - people who voted for Prue would NEVER make Tabuns their second choice. Well lo and behold, after the first ballot, Prue was eliminated. he walked over to Gilles Bisson. Then the next ballot was counted and by doing simple math it was clear that almost half of the Prue voters preferenced Tabuns second and almost none followed Prue to Bisson.
I'll be the first to admit I'm far from fluent in the relationships between all of the candidates. My underlying rationale for the prediction was basically that: 1) Topp and Nash are likely each others personal second choice; and 2) Dewar and Ashton, not necessarily being that enamoured with any other choice, might support Mulcair to avoid opposing the eventual winner.
I could very well be wrong on all accounts, and I do agree that the OMOV process really takes a lot of the "oomph" out of any support a candidate might throw on the weekend.
I suppose it might depend on how many people are voting online on the first ballot. But I won't be at all surprised if many (or most) of the candidates do not declare support for another as they are dropped off.
I'm thinking to the last BC NDP leadership election where Horgan stayed neutral (didn't endorse Farnworth or Dix). This is actually a good strategy in maintaining good relations with all leadership camps, especially since it acknowledges that many of your supporters have already voted and have probably split their support for muliple candidates.
Nathan Cullen has already indicated he will not be directing his supporters to one candidate and he has suggested that he has not made up his mind on what his second choice will be for himself if he is not on the final ballot.
I have been hearing for some time that notwithstanding the antipathy directed by Topp towards Mulcair, a great many of his supporters have Mulcair as their second choice. Reasons cited for this:
1. Need to hold Quebec. The great bulk of T's Quebec support (perhaps only 1500 votes or less) will go to M. This is also a consideration for some of his supporters in the ROC
2. Many early endorsers of Topp did so because of his "shock and awe" campaign". Now that that has fizzled somewhat they are only nominally committed.
3. Many of T's supporters are what might be decribed as the more proessional political class. They in turn recognize M's professionalism as a politician and his electoral promise.
4. Many are not just impressed as well with the other candidates: Nash's lack of spark, Cullen's "plan", Dewar general mediocrity.
5. The exigencies of the preferential ballot make it difficult for T to "deliver" a block vote to anyone.
For these reasons M may actually get a bigger slice of Ts second preferences than any other candidate.
While on the subject of predictions generally, I don't think anyone has yet discussed expended ballots. By that I mean ballots that only list one or at most a few of the candidates and which will therefore not be counted if their listed candidates are all eliminated. From what I can see there will be relatively few voters who list all the candidates.
It may well be, for example, if Topp faces Cullen on the last ballot, a large number of votes will be expended and therefore eliminated from consideration because they have not listed either of the last candidates standing.
This might become. very important. Consider for example, if Mulcair can get 35% on the first ballot and 10% are expended on the last. Then Mulcair will only have to gain a further 10% and not 15% to win. If the expended rate is 20%, he will only have to get 5% more.
Will we eventually get province by province voting results?
Surely not during the actual voting period but after the fact, or could that create tensions or problems for the new person at the helm. I'm starting to get reluctant to use the word leader now - maybe it has something to do with N Korea's "Dear Leader" syndrome. Someone from babble needs to volunteer to be a scrutineer and then they could give us the skinny on what happened.
I don't know, but i think that if the party is smart they will not release any provincial breakdown of the vote results. No point adding fuel to any fires about who does or does not have a mandate from members in one province or another.
I agree Stock.
I'd love to know the regional (and finer breakdown). But they are almost certainly going to keep this info confidential. I suspect that some people will have access to that information (some staff in the head office).
In the case of the BC vote, we didn't get any sort of regional breakdown. And the provincial regional breakdown is going to be a lot less "contentious" than highlighting any regional differences in a national vote. But I personally would love to see that information. Just because it would be revealing of the "regional makeup" and allegiances in the NDP.
I don't believe that the mailed votes will be counted by province. From what I understand they all just go in the same hopper.
Maybe the online ballots are different.
I am sure there will be studies by academics in future months surveying the results by various categories.
I predict that the winner will be declared on March 24.
Such ballots are technically referred to as "non transferable" but the common term is "exhausted" not "expended."
An audacious prediction, but one that I think is spot on.
the expended votes issue is a real one and could serve as a real wildcard depending on the order of things. following cullen's campaign, i've noticed that a signficant percentage of his supporters haven't any choices beyond cullen, so i imagine that his exit will have the biggest single impact on the race. as my brain currently sees it developing (and not my gut), i imagine a situation in which expended votes won't make the difference. so here's my thinking, illustrated with a first ballot vote total of 100 and extinguised votes:
mulcair - 30
nash - 18
cullen - 18
topp - 13
dewar - 10
ashton - 7
singh - 4
let's then say that we have a second ballot in which only 1/100 ballots fall off (99/100 remaining), but two candidates do:
mulcair - 32
nash - 21
cullen - 19
topp - 16
dewar - 11
then a third ballot in which 1/100 ballots fall off (98/100 remaining) with dewar's elimination:
mulcair - 34
nash - 25
cullen - 21
topp - 18
then a 4th ballot in which 2/100 ballots fall (96/100 remaining) with topp's elimination:
mulcair - 40
nash - 32
cullen - 24
and with cullen's exit, i think we can predict a mulcair victory, in almost any scenario. where it gets interesting is if mulcair or cullen score significantly lower than i anticipate, or nash/topp score higher than i anticitpate and cullen goes out early.