NDP leadership race #132
Comments
libby won't be pushed out of the party, no matter who's leader. in the near impossible event that the ndp goes full new labour, even there we had examples of radical mps who were perfectly at home in the party - think george galloway before he went nuts with the saddam thing (and i don't think we'll see libby on state teevee in syria singing assad's praises). and that's IF mulcair takes the party to the "center", which he won't. people, the reason that these guys are kicking up this whole issue is that they want their campaigns to win. it's that simple. IF mulcair becomes leader, a year from now, i guarantee that we'll all be looking back on this realizing that it was all overblown.
and as for libby leaving caucus voluntarily to pursue an opportunity in bc, where would she run? seems the ndp there already has all the potentially libby-friendly seats locked down.
I'm not one to tolerate homophobic, racist or sexist language, but in a hockey game, where testosterone rules and primitive behaviour is rampant, it's kind of silly, or at least unrealistic, IMO to expect players to think before they insult an opponent, and "sissy" is pretty tame compared to some other nasty words he could have uttered. It would be another thing to yell it out loud or to use that language in conversation or in political debate. :)
It's also a 17-year old second hand recollection of a comment that was probably originally in french. This is the very defintion of reaching for straws.
oh, and as for "sissy" (which mulcair would have said in french), in quebec, that could be anything from "tapette" (which is the homophobic term) to cocotte (female diminuative of the cock) to poule mouillée (a no-effort or a coward) to chou or cheri (intimate diminuatives used for children or loved ones that, when used on the pitch, are meant to infantilize the opponent). there are all sorts of things he could have said, and in the context of a hockey game, the only bad one "tapette" would probably never have come up. among adults, i've only heard that when people are close to fist-fights outside of bars and that.
ETA: yeah, this is such a stupid conversation. people are just desperate to prove that mulcair isn't "one of us". might have to force myself to take a few days off here.
Hoodeet wrote:I'm not one to tolerate homophobic, racist or sexist language, but in a hockey game, where testosterone rules and primitive behaviour is rampant, it's kind of silly, or at least unrealistic, IMO to expect players to think before they insult an opponent, and "sissy" is pretty tame compared to some other nasty words he could have uttered. It would be another thing to yell it out loud or to use that language in conversation or in political debate. :)
It's also a 17-year old second hand recollection of a comment that was probably originally in french. This is the very defintion of reaching for straws.
I agree. Much worse has been said by Babblers on this very thread (hi josh
). Given the context, this one's a stretch.
libby won't be pushed out of the party, no matter who's leader. in the near impossible event that the ndp goes full new labour, even there we had examples of radical mps who were perfectly at home in the party - think george galloway before he went nuts with the saddam thing (and i don't think we'll see libby on state teevee in syria singing assad's praises). and that's IF mulcair takes the party to the "center", which he won't. people, the reason that these guys are kicking up this whole issue is that they want their campaigns to win. it's that simple. IF mulcair becomes leader, a year from now, i guarantee that we'll all be looking back on this realizing that it was all overblown.
and as for libby leaving caucus voluntarily to pursue an opportunity in bc, where would she run? seems the ndp there already has all the potentially libby-friendly seats locked down.
As I said, the ONLY candidates who will be in a position to ask an MP to step down to make room for the leader to run in a byelection is Brian Topp (and Martin Singh if he actually has any chance), who don't have seats in the House of Commons. It would make sense that they would want to find a safe seat for Brian, should he be elected leader, since Brian has never run for elected office. And certainly, Libby Davies has one of the "safest" NDP seats in the country, plus she is a very prominent Brian Topp supporter, so maybe she will be asked to step down as a favor to Brian, in the event he gets elected.
Of course, he could just as easily make the same request from someone like Paul Dewar, who has one of the most conveniently located ridings in the country for a leader.
as yeah, saw that as a "libby would leave if mulcair..." comment. hm, on that note, i think that evicting dewar would be very unpopular in the caucus, much more so than putting libby aside. plus topp has already promised to run in quebec, so i'll stick with my original guess that probably the best fit for him (ie. where he could be reasonably sure to be elected) is still jeanne-le ber, conveniently adjacent to the former riding of another somewhat quebec party leader, paul martin.
I am commenting not on the anecdote, but the clamour of a few Mulcair supporters to defend his right to use a homophobic slur because it will a) get the NDP elected or b) because the context is okay. I have ceased caring about whether or not Mulcair, or any NDP candidate will be good for Canada. Moderating 200+ NDP leadership threads have taken care of that. The repeated insinuations that I somehow have a horse in this race are laughable.
Basically I think TheArchitect got it right in post # 46. Excellent post.
It's nice to know that Mulcair supporters see nothing wrong with using misogynist and homphobic slur if the context is right.
An impressive display of the self-righteousness that has kept the NDP out of reach of government for 50 years.
Mulcair, the hockey-buff homophobe?
Outed at last!!! And just in time for the Convention!
The horse-race betters have clearly run out of stuff to talk about. Probably time to crown a Winner and let her/him dictate party policy, as per hallowed tradition.
It's what Jack/Tommy/Jesus would have wanted.
Its nice to know that with Mulcair the NDP can have a leader who actually PLAYS our national sport - unlike Harper who has spent the last 7 years talking about writing a book about it!
Re post 24: The hockey game thing sounds kind of cool, actually.
Anyway, on a different subject, I read in a blog post yesterday that Mulcair opposes working with the Liberals in any sort of cooperation, either before or after an election. I checked this out and found an article in the Huffington Post where it states,
So, unlike Layton, he's not open to a coalition or accord to remove the Conservatives from power even if after the next election the Conservatives won a plurarity of seats and could be kicked out with a coalition or accord by the NDP and the Liberals. This is something that should give pause to any Cullen supporters for supporting Mulcair as a second choice.
It seems a gamble that could limit options, which reminds me of Ignatieff's similar stance (IE, it's either us or them, and no middle ground). But to be fair the presentation of it is different, in that when Ignatieff rejected the coalition, he did so out of fear that it would make the Liberals less popular (seeming to buy into the Conservative rhetoric), whereas Mulcair is saying that he takes this stand because the Liberals are unreliable (once bitten, twice shy). It might be good strategy, but I do worry it could be a bit limiting. Seems a very big gamble, especially if in the next election the Liberals gain some seats (IE, get up to 60 or so) and the NDP maintains its seats with some gains to have enough (with a coalition) to give the Tories the boot. What then if the coalition option has been eliminated? More Conservative rule in a minority situation, it would seem.
It may be the right strategy. I'm not very fond of Liberals, and don't buy into the rhetoric that the Conservatives are that much worse (they're both cats in mouseland, as far as I'm concerned). Still, I'm not fond of eliminating potentially useful options for the future, either.
If we banned anyone who ever hurled an insult from elected office, we'd have no government. I'm not endorsing personal attacks. But half of babble has been banned or warned at some point in this race, and I don't hold a grudge for what was said a week ago. Your best argument against a candidate is something he said 20 years ago during a hockey game?
I'm just reading what he said in the article and assuming he's sincere. Should I assume he's not being honest in his statements?
Niki's idea about holding a party conference in Lethbridge, Alberta is a good one. She could MC it (being as she is so bilingual), just like she and Megan Leslie did at the Halifax convention. I would like to see the NDP hold a caucus retreat in Lethbridge that could also serve as a mini-party conference (for one day), as Niki Ashton is suggesting.
If Mulcair says he'll never form a coalition to defeat Harper, he should be run out of the party. Or join the Socialist Caucus, whose policy that is.
However, I didn't see any actual quote from him in your article, mark_alfred, that says he opposes a coalition with the Liberals or anyone else. Could you direct me to it please? A quote. Between quotation marks. Please.
If Mulcair is as stupid as Ignatieff was on this issue, I would not have voted for him for that reason alone. But Jack clearly said he was still open to coalitions to defeat Harper, and I haven't heard a single one of the candidates abandon that openness - which was one of the key factors, by the way, in winning Québec.
He referenced the post-election coalition attempt with the Liberals in 2008 and said he'd never work with them again. link
Well, I'm not sure Libby is the type to quit politics because she might have disagreements with the leader - but her seat has to be one of the safest NDP seats in the country - for decades.
From Wikipedia:
Vancouver East is known as a New Democratic Party stronghold; the NDP and its Co-operative Commonwealth Federation predecessor have won all but two elections in the riding since its creation in 1933. Both losses (1974and 1993) have come at the hands of Liberal candidates who failed to retain the seat at the next election. TheConservative Party and its right-leaning predecessors have always fared poorly in the riding, rarely garnering more than 20 percent of the vote.
(And I am just adding this as a comment - not as a "Mulcair Supporter")
Further to that, if Brian Topp wins as leader, Libby's riding just might be one of the safest bets for an untested candidate to get elected to the house, although commute-wise a riding in Ontario or Quebec might be preferable. Since Brian is not an MP, he will probably have to ask an MP to step down so he can run in a by-election or ask Nicole to continue serving as the NDP leader in the House of Commons.
This is a reasonable reaction to my comment about Mulcair and the word "sissy":
And this is not:
I find it astonishing that anyone would compare using a highly offensive slur to eating ribs. I'm not going to speculate about the exact biases or insinuations implicit in such a comparison, but I'm pretty darn sure that this kind of thing has no place in our discourse, in our party, or in our Canada.
I found the above exchange rather interesting. I'd always thought that the NDP had been kept out of government due to tactical voting, but apparently, it's because we object to the use misogynistic and homophobic slurs! Who would have guessed?
I must also reply to socialdemocraticmiddle:
You know as well as I do, my friend, that I've given a good many reasons that I don't support Mulcair. Believe me, this isn't supposed to be some sort of "best argument" against Mulcair. It's a quote I noticed from an article that was shared here in Babble which I found irksome.
And finally, on a completely unrelated note:
I definitely agree with Howard (and Niki) about this one. I've always felt that the party needs to hold more conferences—different from the party conventions—to get its message out. And Lethbridge would be a great spot for one.
The right (and the centre, for that matter) has always painted the NPD as out of touch with mainstream Canada. I'm not suggesting that being out of touch with mainstream Canada is necessarily always such a bad thing, considering where mainstream Canada stands on some issues. However, this self-righteous suggestion that context counts for nothing in person to person discourse is laughable, and plays directly into that unfortunate "crazy lefty" meme. It is us living the stereotype that has kept us out of government.
Opposing offensive language in a hockey game is akin to opposing the sport itself. Who gets to define what's acceptable? And who gets to interpret the language?
I'd like to see the NDP tent grow. If someone like Libby Davies would feel the need to leave the tent, that's a step in the wrong direction.
Jack Layton did a lot to "moderate" the NDP. I've been okay with the decisions he made, sometimes even a fan. But he managed to do it with very little controversy and in-fighting. That's because he worked hard to make people feel included, and to avoid framing any of those battles as left-right battles. Instead, they were means-ends battles (can we achieve the same goal with a more palatable policy), or incremental-immediatist battles (would this be a good first step that might open the door to further reforms).
Unfortunately, we no longer have Jack. I'm left scratching my head over who can keep everyone unified as we grow. Maybe it can't be done. Maybe growth necessarily means losing some people to make room for others. I'd prefer to keep everyone.
Do you care to add the word "some" before "Mulcair supporters" or are you tarring all Mulcair supporters with the same brush?
It would be nice if the prohibition against personal attacks would be universal here.
I'm not one to tolerate homophobic, racist or sexist language, but in a hockey game, where testosterone rules and primitive behaviour is rampant, it's kind of silly, or at least unrealistic, IMO to expect players to think before they insult an opponent, and "sissy" is pretty tame compared to some other nasty words he could have uttered. It would be another thing to yell it out loud or to use that language in conversation or in political debate. :)
I'm not one to tolerate homophobic, racist or sexist language, but in a hockey game, where testosterone rules and primitive behaviour is rampant, it's kind of silly, or at least unrealistic, IMO to expect players to think before they insult an opponent, and "sissy" is pretty tame compared to some other nasty words he could have uttered. It would be another thing to yell it out loud or to use that language in conversation or in political debate. :)
In my experience, the word "sissy" has literally zero connection to anyone's gender or sexual orientation. It means "wimp". Obviously we can debate the meaning and basis of every insult until the cows come home, which just goes to underscore the stupidity of eliminating context from every interpersonal exchange.