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NDP leadership race #127
Comments
March 15, 2012 - 8:58pm
#89
My overall point... the party is NOT imploding. We're having a leadership contest.
Ed Broadbent's points might strongly advocate for Topp, and say that Mulcair is a weaker candidate. But that's what's supposed to happen in a leadership contest. We all talk about who the best candidate is, in our minds.
Amazed that some Mulcair supporters can dish it out, but overreact to the most reasonable of criticisms.
Take a close reading. These aren't "attacks". They're not the kind of thing that will prevent Broadbent from supporting Mulcair, or prevent Mulcair from supporting Topp.
The only way this harms party unity is if the sewing circle starts gossiping and making it bigger than it is. If we start taking this stuff personally.
Mulcair said that in one interview with the Toronto Star and subsequently scaled it back or clarified that he didn't mean that the NDP hadn't modernised but that it needed to continue the process started under Jack Layton.
As for Topp's tax plan representing modernisation, since when did "tax the rich" because a new NDP idea?
It wasn't all Jack or all Tom. It was a combination of many factors. Decline of the Bloc, Lib scandal, Tory stupidity
Do you know French josh, because it was completely impossible to follow the NDP in the Quebec media last election without being continually bombarded by dozens of campaign stops and announcements by Mulcair? There was one or more virtually every day. Mulcair spent like 6 days in his riding the whole campaign! Tom Mulcair was not responsible for winning all those seats but he played a big part in it.
Topp got Raymond LaGuardia's endorsement and Mulcair got over half the Quebec caucus'!
+1
Founded on what?
Puhlease. I have been categorical in that I would support any of the candidates as leader. Have you heard otherwise from any other babblers?
Oh josh, why must you josh around
Broadbent is at risk for hurting his own legacy if he doesn't rein it in. If he keeps this up, he hurts the party. Maybe even hurts Topp's chances.
hhahhahahah!!! surprised not christopher walken or harvey keitel as mulcair!
Hanks is busy with the Obama campaign.
the mulcair code!
tom hanks = brian topp
christopher walken = thomas mulcair
meryl streep = peggy nash
woody harrelson = nathan cullen
steve buschemi = martin singh
sean connery = ed broadbent
hilary swank = a combined paul dewar/nikki ashton character
morgan freeman = a re-tooled romeo, now from the deep south rather than extreme north
Sure. He could still win as the anti-Mulcair candidate if all the other candidates throw their votes behind him. Singh would probably go to Mulcair. But if Mulcair has the most votes on the first and second ballots but not enough to win overall, then we could see Cullen, Nash, Dewar and maybe Ashton move to Topp. If that happens, you will have a very badly divided party.
I watched the interview too and Ed talked about how Mulcair is overly critical of the staff in the federal office and believes that is not right - essentially they are like civil servants. I agree with that. I think it's poor political judgement to publicly critize your staff (and they are all our staff in the party) to score political points. Which is why some suggest that if Mulcair wins he will sweep out our long term staff who were central to getting us to official opposition and bring in his own crew - whoever they may be.
Incidently, I am not a loser.
That would be exploited no end by the other parties and the MSM. I hope it doesn't happen.
Given his difficulties with French, I should probably take it easy on Ed too. Who knows if he has been able to follow the Quebec media, despite his stint at Rights and Democracy in Montreal.
In this leadership race, the Quebec media has been categorical about the importance of Mulcair's role in the 2011 breakthrough.
Mr Broadbent did a lot of damage with his attacks IMV and I will run as far away as possible from anyone he endorsed, or endorses in the future. And if he is the NDP's elderstatesman the NDP should run far and fast from him.
...glad I am voting for none of those whose supporters who are so busy attacking others here.
Fuckity fuck talk about shooting your own alleged party in the foot.
......................
What exactly do you mean by "along cultural lines"?
Wonderful just wonderful most people would not have known if Muclair did any of what Ed accuses him of in such a nasty public way and you just compounded it. NICE. This is nasty politics and is doing no favours for any Canadian let alone any NDP. This stuff is what makes people turn OFF of politics.
I am so glad Nathan and Niki have not stooped to any of this.
All I'm saying is that this is 90% the positioning of the contest, and 10% an actual disagreement.
The amount of policy daylight between Mulcair and Topp is small. Both are social democrats. Both frequently cite the 2011 platform. Both want to modernize. Both have cited governments in Manitoba and Saskatchewan as models of fiscal responsibility.
Topp is the only candidate (other than Cullen) to suggest a tax increase. Modernization doesn't necessarily mean new so much as keeping up with the times. Ed Broadbent wisely pointed out: when the left (or pseudo-left) parties in the U.S. and France are both advancing higher taxes on the rich, you want to get ahead on this issue. Putting taxes back on the table allows us to modernize for 2015 AND stay true to our principles.
Broadbent points out that it's not even like Mulcair has come out adamantly against a tax increase, and concedes that some people actually believe that Mulcair might be for a tax increase deep down somewhere. But he disagrees with Mulcair's approach of avoiding it.
The only other thing...Mulcair HAS mildly (unintentionally?) insulted the party a few times, saying we're too centralized, not modern, stuck with boilerplate... These comments might endear him to the mainstream media, but it does kind of slag a lot of people who have put in a lot of work to improve the NDP's standing. It also puts Mulcair in direct contrast to the insiders of the party, a lot of whom are responsible for our success thus far.
These are small things in the grand policy platform we will run on in 2015.
But in a leadership contest, they're monumental. Don't be surprised when the media, or even the surrogates, make these sound like life-or-death choices.
Do you not think it's poor political judgement to publicly criticize a running fellow ndp member to score political points?
Incidently. I am a new NDP member. I am not one of 'your crew' and found that comment very elitist. The NDP is not such a welcoming party after all to members who fall outside the standard idealogue.