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Tom Mulcair should drop out.
And Mulcair supporters should telling others who should run and who we must support, even before the ballots are counted. Talk about negative divisive campaigning. At this point I'll just be glad when it's all decided.
Now we have a federal NDP leadership campaign that the MSP can sink their teeth into. And it starting to show all the signs of a similiar recent event in BC where Carole James basically lost her leadership at a BC NDP convention. The net results being not too shabby for the BC NDP.
Amazin'
I laughed hard too...
but probably for different reasons.
FWIW, although after the pole position, I think not much.
http://accidentaldeliberations.blogspot.ca/2012/03/leadership-2012-candidate-rankings_18.html
RE: marijauna...
We're mostly looking at this from a legal perspective but what about the health perspective? Do long term users of marijauna have higher cancer rates or respiratory problems? If it becomes legalized, will there be a health promotion model in tweny years time telling people not to smoke pot cause they'll have respiratory problems?
I just came home from a long sunny walk with my wolfhound Angus who, by the way, just endorsed his fellow Irishman Tom for St Patrick's Day. As was FFK, Angus was very taken with Tom's Irish get-up.
Two points;
1. On marijuana policy, I have heard Tom sound a note of caution before. He has noted that there is a much stronger type od marijuana being grown now than a few years ago and we should tke a good look at it.
By way of full disclosure, I make about half my living off the trafficking in marijuana. I have had an indirect involvement in at least 200 growhouses. I will not be more specific that that but trust me. I know what I am talking about.
And I can tell you that Tom is right. Perhaps one of the things we Canadians can take credit for is our burgeoning marijuana crop. It is a bigger cash crop for us than wheat. We have a huge market in the US because our marijuana tends to be stronger than theirs. Our growers hve developed a strain of marijauna with either a much higher THC level or , as someone posted earlier, a much lower canabinoid level. These two things make marijauna more potent than it used to be. It is like the difference between whiskey and beer.
I don't mean to pull rank on this but I know whaI am talking about. And Tom is right.
That being said, he is vociferously against the new minimum sentences for growing marijuana and the genneral mindless Conservative anti-crime legislation.
2. Broadbent's fulminations promise to be a disaster for Topp. It isn't simply the numerous press comments and editorials linked above.
I spoke with two of Tom's organizers about this today and they are both very bullish. One said that he made 70 phone calls yesterday as part of a general canvass. Only ONE person expressed any degree of agreement with Broadbent. About a dozen said they were more likely to support Tom as a result.
The overwhelming sentiment is that Broadbent went far too far that he was hysterical, unfocused and unfair, that it is a sign of desperation in the Topp camp, that it is appalling and potentially damaging to the party.
I am convinced now that Topp will lose badly. Not only that, his reputation as a formidible strategist will never recover.
nicky
I sincerely hope your last sentence is incorrect. Brian has been and hopefully will very much continue to be a formidible strategist within the NDP. I just wish he had the street smarts at the moment to cut Broadbent loose, repudiate his comments, move on, and make the best of a bad situation for himself. Now that would be a class act.
Mulcair has never ever said he would move the NDP to the middle. Please see for youself.
http://www.radio-canada.ca/emissions/les_coulisses_du_pouvoir/2011-2012/
Anyone else currently on Peggy Nash's telephone town hall?
M. Spector posted an article in another thread where the authors wondered why none of the candidates were talking about the Occupy movement. I wonder that too. And then Nash just talking about reaching out to the Occupy movement as well as the 40% of people who don't vote.
Hey, an actually useful use of the polling feature: Press 1 if you are going to Convention, press 2 if you want to make a donation.
Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic. I've been on something like 5 telephone town halls recently, and so many of them use their polling feature to ask questions that assume people are morons.
"Some people think that eating babies is nutritious. Others think that eating babies is a horrific crime. What do you think? Press 1 if you're in favour of eating babies. Press 2 if you're against eating babies."
Good for you for taking in Peggy's town hall. I hung up cause I already voted her #1. Awesome that she is talking about the Occupy movement and reaching the 40% of people who don't vote, she is hitting all the correct left wing NDP messages. Plus she's making proportional rep a priority. She rocked it on her Babble Q&A.
The real story in the final week will be Peggy ATTRACTING votes from Dippers put off by Topp/Broadbent going negative but nonetheless having been clued in that Mulcair wants to move the party right with his Third Way, Blair-ite approach (it's in the papers now).
Go Peggy!
Oooh, Nash just said she would make proportional representation front and centre in the next election campaign - very nice. "Under my plan on PR, what we will be doing is spending the next 3 years campaigning on PR, raising it in the media, raising it in community meetings, raising awareness... about what it can mean." (Sorry, couldn't type fast enough to catch the whole sentence!) We'll campaign on that, and then when we are in government, we'll put in place a royal commission to find the best form of PR in six months. Then we'll put that system in place for the next election.
And she answered another question about the Occupy movement at length - she says she has made contact with occupy movements across the country, including in Vancouver, and she wants to continue working with them and building ties with them and electoral politics. (This isn't verbatim, btw.)
Strange question just now - someone just asked her whether she can vote for Niki Ashton! The person didn't seem to know how the process works. Nash handled it very well, said that yes, she can, and asked her if she had taken out a membership, and when the member said she did, she said that yes, she could vote for her.
You're 100% right. But it isn't going to help us in the election. I know the "very reasonable people" think it's great when we back off from a reform and replace it with a multimillion dollar research study. But it's terrible tactics when the Liberals can outflank us, even if they lie through their teeth.
Anyway. We'll see what happens. Most of the votes are in, so it's too late for something like this to affect who wins. But it could still affect how Mulcair is perceived after the convention. I think people see enough difference between "yes, but..." and "no, not yet..." that they will ask for a clear answer.
85 posts in 4 hours.
This outlines a possible win for Nash. For those not on the West Coast, Bill is well known here, very active and independent minded, but well connected to the main players.
http://billtieleman.blogspot.ca/2012/03/peggy-nash-her-possible-route-to...
Brachina, I think it's not so much about what people say they're going to do when they're in campaign mode. It's about the positions they've taken and the statements they've made in the past. People aren't claiming that Mulcair is campaigning on moving to the centre. Nobody says that Mulcair is campaigning on supporting Israel and marginalizing activists for Palestine. Nobody says that stuff when they're campaigning.
Everyone I've seen posting this stuff about Mulcair bringing the party to the centre or going third-way or supporting Israeli imperialism is basing it on what he's said or done previously, not what he's telling the press now that he's hoping to win votes from people within his party.
Here are a couple of issues I have a problem with Topp about: his article about Greek austerity, and his article about supporting restrictive copyright legislation. Now, is he campaigning on supporting austerity budgets and going after people on copyright? Of course not. But those articles he wrote should be taken into consideration when deciding whether to support his leadership bid.
Long-term lurker who has been spending way too much time reading these threads. Duncan, there are some very good reasons here for supporting Peggy. My concern, and I know ageism can be as vile as other isms, is that Peggy will be 65 at the time of her first campaign for leader and worse, 70 in running for her second term. Isn't this considerably less than ideal?
a lot of wordiness, and i strongly support mulcair, but i tend to agree with the bet that peggy igg-nashieff will probably take this one.
Peggy Ig-nash-ieff? I don't get it, flight from kamakura. How is she like Ignatieff? I like political humour as much as the next person, but I don't get the joke.
french accent and manner of speech is very similar, i guess it's not that funny. but as i come to see her election to the purple as more and more likely, i've become somewhat fatalistic about it, and nothing says black like count iggs.
The research has been done, the situations in the Netherlands and Portugal have been examined to death. Sure dealing with cocaine and heroin is one thing but but marijuana needs to be decriminalized ASAP and we need to end the racist and classist War on Drugs now.
It's an interesting and thoughtful article. I just find it a bit frustrating that Tieleman made this remark, referring to Cullen's electoral plan:
It's frustrating because Nathan has addressed this criticism. Here he is addressing it in an interview with Macleans magazine:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/02/07/qa-nathan-cullen/
Camp X you ask a good question. Peggy was born in 1951 and will be 64 when she runs in October 2015. A second term is a possibility if the NDP forms a government. Likely the first government would be a coalition, so if would only last two or three years at best.
If you check around some outstanding leaders were still going strong past 75, De Gaulle, Churchiill for two. Tag Eralander the Soc Dem giant from Sweden kept his party young as he got older.
Look at Peggys support from youthful volunteers. That was the story of the BC NDP convention, and it will be the story in Toronto as well. I hope she gets the gumpy vote as well of course, but there is serious conmpetition for my contemporary males
For all the young caucus talent waiting in the wings, how much better it appears to have a leader who is not intending to set up a tent, and hold on to power for 20 years.
I was born in 1944, and men age faster than women at this stage in our lives, but I have no doubt people my age today can be terrific at high performance jobs. People in their 60s I know are doing lots of fine work. I consider Peggy to be at her best at this point in her life. Her three children are adults, her mother is alive, and she has seen the issues facing every generation of Canadian from up close. At this age she has maturity, experience, and controlled ambition. She is not an ego maniac, a hazard of the profession. She knows she can do the job better than any of the other candidates, which is why she is running. She would have preferred to be Finance Minister under Jack.
She stepped up when party members called on her to run. Listen carefully to what she says, and does not say. She will make us all proud, supporters or not, New Democrats or not.
As PM she will easily outshine any recent occupant of the post.
Keep posting Camp X, we are looking to foster open debate.
Whomever you are supporting I am more than willing to put down as my last choice. Of course the moderators will allow your comments as fair debate, while they chastize those they disagree with.
Thanks, josh, for reigniting my own very strong man-crush on Tom!