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It destroys the party's electoral chances if Mulcair wins and destroys our image as a party with a shred more of integrity than the Liberals. This is a joke.
ETA: At 24 Sussex they are chanting: Four more years! Four more years!
Tom Flannagan is having a ball.
But there is nothing Ed said that can be used with the general public... only inside baseball stuff witin the NDP.
He would know the Conservatives dont need Ed Broadbent for that material.
Howard, more than half of the party doesnt give a fuck about what has got your knickers in a knot.
And the public is oblivious, other than the small slice of political junkies that appreciate the entertainment value.
NorthReport, if you're going to promote stories likes Tandt which openly says Mulcair is like Blair and the Libs and NDP will merge while dismissing the "loser" mentality in the NDP, despite the fact that these "losers" have poured a lot of blood sweat and tears into the party to take it this far, you're actually kneecapping the NDP in 2015. These are the people that will donate all their free time to campaigns. If you want to piss all over them even if they are not a large part of the electorate, you risk the NDP losing if it is a close race should they choose to stay home because of the arrogance of people like you. Should this happen the party will also have to spend more money getting ready to train people in advance of 2015 while the Cons already have legions of passionate and trained campaigners with experience
The insults hurled by the Mulcair supporters since this afternoon are far more cruel and personal then anything that has come out of the mouth of Topp or Mulcair even though they have said things that are ill-advised. Someone who has been in politics a long time and is retired now told me, always take a look at the kind of people that a candidate or leader has around them, it can tell you a lot.
At one point early in the campaign I was putting Mulcair as my #2 or maybe even my #1 but now he's not on my ballot. I was aware of his "Third Way" leanings but interested in a leader that could beat Harper. What turned me off has more to do with his campaign and the people on it than his actual policies.
LOL!
I predicted on day one that this six-month beauty contest, by a party incapable of (/ afraid of) organizing broad popular consultations on issues of actual importance and principle, would end up in a self-destructive performance by a gaggle of greedy self-serving opportunists.
And so it has come to pass. Attacking each other in public. Undermining each other everywhere. With legions of minions wearing their star's jersey and attacking all the others.
As if it's a noble thing for a progressive organization to have a Supreme Dictator who decides everything, right down to whether the party goes left, right, or straight down.
And now you have the hallowed Saint Idiot Himself, Broadbent, staggering onto the scene in a last desperate effort to prove that he was right all along.
Oh, and anyone who doesn't like me launching "personal attacks" against Ed Broadbent, can consider themselves personally attacked in advance, in florid violation of babble policy.
On a sad and serious note: We will never build a new world in this way.
Exactly, former leaders traditionally play the role of a senior statesman. So a former leader wouldn't go out and criticize a leadership candidate unless he/she thought it was REALLY important: that the election of that candidate would pose an immense danger to the party—a danger so great that drastic action was justified to stop it.
I'm just stupefied by the attacks on Ed Broadbent here. (I'm not talking about your comment at this point at this point, jjuares.) I've seen Babblers claim, among other things, that Ed is being "manipulated," and, worse, that he secretly was angry with Jack Layton and wanted him to lose. What a bunch of baloney.
Leadership campaigns, by the very nature, involve conflict. That's fine. I never thought I'd see the day, though, that supposedly loyal New Democrats would be launching these kinds of attacks on, of all people, Ed Broadbent.
It's fine to disagree with Ed. I admit that I was a little disappointed when Ed endorsed Brian Topp so early in the campaign. But to question Ed Broadbent's loyalty to our party and to Jack, or Ed's commitment to forming government, is just absurd.
KenS, I look forward to having you re-read this post on election night 2015.
Dont worry. You wont have to wait any more than a month for this to slip below the waves. Forever.
You were right Unionist.
That's okay because we know that no matter how badly the old line parties have run Canada into the ground over the last 35 years, the entire back row will always demand miracles in putting Humpty together again. As far as they are concerned, two redundant conservative parties in-hand will always be worth a first NDP government in waiting. Let them wreck the country some more and see how that works.
I think its important that we should not jump to conclusions that the "Know Mulcair" website is affiliated with the Brian Topp campaign. In terms of possible "authors" or "inspirations", a thought came to me today. That name "Know Mulcair" reminds me of the name of the campaign targetted against proportional representation in the BC referendum that was headed by Bill Tieleman "Know STV" (which is still on the web as http://www.knowstv.ca/knowstv.html).
Is this just a remarkable coincidence? It does so much seem the style of Bill Tieleman, who happens to be a prominent supporter of Peggy Nash. Anyone out there can confirm or negate this possibility? There is such an obvious association in the website names that I figure SOMEONE would have asked Bill if the website was his initiative?
Spare me your crocodile tears.
Oh, the wounds. Never had the bubble pricked before.
North Star
The reality is as someone has so wisely previously posted, Topp's campaign has failed miserably, and Topp and his other backroom cronies are now in full-time panic mode.
This mud-slinging has been going since the very beginning of the campaign from Topp. Some of it very suble, and some, not so much.
It would not surprise me for Topp to do a lot worse than people's worst expectations of him.
Mulcair wants to take Harper down and win the next election and so do I.
It is about time you clued into what is actually going on here.
No party can ever be as worthy as the corrupt stooges of the day in Ottawa. Let's stick with the current bozos in federal powerlessness until the day of perfect revolution, or that one which will never happen. That's basically all they ever have to say in so many words.
Ah yes! Just like Ed Broadbent led us to promised land during the reign of Brian Mulroney, Margaret Thatcher, and Ronald Reagan. I just love these ultra-conservative decades. They lead to such great things.
How can Topp do worse than people's worst expectations of him?
Even a lot worse than the worst.
Is there some overwrought machine somewhere?
Would someone please turn off the autopilot?
Oops, wrong thread
The whole point of Topp's strategy, because there is no hope in hell of him winning, is to make all the Mulcair supporters feel miserable and thus suppress Mulcair's vote. Then, Peggy Nash, the candidate Ed Broadbent should have had the brains to support in the first place (if he really wanted an anti-Mulcair), will come from behind and win.
In fact, Peggy Nash, Peter Julian, Megan Leslie or anyone other than this cynical backroom hack named Brian Topp, would have made a much much much better non-Mulcair candidate for the establishment.
To quote Peggy Nash quoting Paul Dewar "Stay tuned..."
So its no problem when Ed Broadbent decides its his role to attack an NDP MP and frontrunning candidate for leadership, but us lowly members are just supposed to "sit down and shut up" when we think he is wrong???
Sorry, but Ed Broadbent is hardly a saint. I can remember that at David Barrett's retirement dinner, he seemed to be criticizing provincial NDP leaders Grant Notley, Allen Blakeney and Howard Pawley because they didn't side with Broadbent who supported PM Trudeau's plans for the federal government to unilaterally patriate the constitution without support from the provinces.
KenS is right about this, (but not much else) it's still bad for the party to make a respected elder statsement the point man on your statue of liberty play.
If Topp or Broadbent really believed the things they are saying about Mulcair they would have gotten out of the race and endorsed another candidate because the party is clearly not buying what they're selling.
And Québec will largely be shut out of the leadership race.
I post an opinion about the intellectual, ideological, and organizational bankruptcy of a party which turns what should be simple, collaborative, adminsitrative exercise into a festival of self-immolation in full public view - and you ask me, "yeah ok, but what did this one out of seven do wrong? Huh?"
I don't think you understood my post, Gaian. Otherwise, you wouldn't be asking me when I stopped beating my spouse. Read it again, and tell me this: "Unionist erred by saying what?"
Bomb the bridge by Brian Topp, The Globe and Mail, January 21st, 2010
Certainly you don't have to "sit down and shut up"—as I've said, it's fine to disagree with Ed; I myself have expressed disagreement with him at times. What's unacceptable isn't disagreeing with Ed. What's unacceptable is saying that he's not loyal to the party and secretly always wanted Jack to lose elections—absurd attacks which, unfortunately, we've seen some Mulcair supporters level against Ed today.