NDP Leadership Race #134
Comments
It won't just affect the targeted ridings. It will be the number one issue of the election campaign. The daily wrapups will be taken up with pinpointing and exploitong the inconsistencies in the two parties' platforms. Harper will present the case that this three-headed monster can't possibly agree on policy, let alone run the country.
I agree with you here, and as I mentioned before, a lot of Liberal voters, if in a riding where it's only the NDP and Conservatives, would likely go Conservative, robbing the NDP of a potential gain (something Topp mentioned as a potential problem).
Meanwhile, the Liberals will be campaigning for government on a lefty-leaning platform with the NDP's imprimatur, and could easily scoop up those voters that went over the side in every election since 2004, while the basketcase NDP tries to define itself using the same terms that hobbled it in the past and that it just spent three election cycles breaking free from. If I were an MP anywhere in Ontario (except maybe Olivia, Charlie, Rafferty and Hyer and a couple others), I'd be gravely concerned about Liberal "poaching" in that scenario.
Not sure I agree with you on this latter point, though. Possibly strategic voting in ridings where it's a battle between the NDP and Liberals could take place. But Cullen's plan would put the emphasis on removing the Tories, and this possibly could reassure people that the ridings that are currently Conservative would now have less "vote splitting", resulting in people being more comfortable to vote with their hearts in ridings where electing a Conservative isn't an issue. Also, I'm guessing that the NDP under Cullen would be markedly more left-wing than the Liberals, because, like Topp, he will tax the wealthiest amongst us to close the gap between the rich and poor (and I doubt the Liberals would). So, under Cullen, there'd be a very obvious distinction between the NDP and Liberals (which would be less obvious under Mulcair or Dewar, increasing the likelihood of strategic voting with these two).
With all the talk about the positioning of the NDP, I'm glad to see Megan Leslie speaking out about the fact that Jack Layton did NOT move the NDP to the centre.
I’m ticked at all the media commentary about Jack moving us to the centre. He never did that. He was radical. He just had a common-sense, folksy way of communicating that brought people to us. I trusted him, absolutely, to do this, and to keep us true to our values, even if (in moments) I was uneasy with a position. And he did it.
I hope that the next leader can be both a dynamic communicator, *and* stay true to our social democratic values. That’s the sweet spot that the new leader has to straddle.
Source: http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/03/20/where-did-jack-layton-stand/
A point that really needs to be made by such an eloquent MP (dare I say a future Prime Minister?). This is always part of what I loved about Jack: that he understood that we could build and renew the party without moving to the centre.
This is very much in contrast to what's been done by supposedly social democratic parties in just about every other industrialized country, where basic social democratic values have been abandoned. And it's part of why I think it's concerning when Thomas Mulcair says that we need to renew in the way that parties in other countries have. The kind of renewal that other parties in other countries have undergone is fundamentally opposed to the kind of renewal Jack Layton led. And if the kind of change that other social democratic parties have undergone is the kind Thomas Mulcair advocates, then as far as I'm concerned, he can keep his change.
- « first
- ‹ previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
That explains why Mulcair has so much union support.
Colour me not too stuck on myself as a multi-generational CCF-NDper in my 32 years cause I have seen plenty of hypocrisy coming out of the NDP supporters and members while fingers were being pointed.
Besides to me it is self-evident the role the NDP has played outside Question Period (which is the only face most Canadians see of the Opposition or in a news scrum also fingerpointing) or we would not be Official Opposition today and have all the social structures we have.
Really??? There is no room for satirical humour about ourselves being 3rd party Opposition for 50 years?
It just wouldn't do if we have a sense of humour about our (also self-evident) "purity" as a socialist or social democratic party whose supporters and members naval gaze to no end?
I thought the comment was pretty frickin funny. Still do. Call me the " Impious NDPer" I guess
Yeah, I don't think that it's insulting to point out that we've been a third party for a long time, and our modus operandi has been to guilt the Liberals into doing it, or occasionally get a few seats because we were proven right in hindsight. I don't even think it's insulting to poke fun at it.
I don't know which strawman is more annoying: the strawman of the New Democrat who has no respect for our contributions to health care / charter of rights / pensions, or the strawman of the New Democrat who doesn't want to go into government.
Attributing these viewpoints to people who didn't actually say them always drags the conversation down.
Neya... the article that quoted Mulcair quoted a lady who said if the NDP get into government iit means they have sold out. Denying that some -maybe a lot- of generational NDPers believe the NDP should just remain the voice of conscious and never govern federally is pretty annoying itself.
Well, to quote one woman and than to suggest as "fact" that what she states is true is well "baseless". I have not met one NDP supporter or member who has stated that and I have been a active member in the NDP and at the local riding level for a long time. And if I wanted to lead this party where the last leader who everybody pretty much loved (and who brought love, hope and optism) the last thing I would do is trash it but maybe that is just me.
Oh and we are tied for number #1, not bad for a party who has, according to this one individual has "50 years of hectoring and finger-wagging and telling people what’s wrong with their decisions."Really!!! That's it!
I guess Canadians don't see the party that way and see us as "on the move" - go NPD!
You guys understand the whole resonance of the phrase "conscience of Parliament" and such, right? That frame was invented by the Liberal Party to express backhanded respect for and tacitly discredit Stanley Knowles. Do you know why they invented it? It wasn't just to make the NDP look bad or unelectable. It was to deflect attention from the very real challenges the CCF/NDP was posing to the agenda of institutional capitalism, particularly when it came to protecting our national sovereignty and advocating public ownership of private capital and resources. When our adversaries say that, it's a sign to keep doing what we're doing. It has nothing at all to do with whether we can govern or not and everything to do with what we're saying and to whom.
thanks Gunder, for giving up what "conscience of Parliament" means. So we need to keep doing what we are doing rather than adopt their agenda of institutional capitalism and instead protect our national sovereignty and so on. We don't need to become more of the same of the 2 right-wing parties.
Topp's campaign deserves every single bit of this. If you don't want to play with fire, stay out of the kitchen. Apart from Mulcair, there are no other former NDP Quebec MPs are there?
Former MP says for Quebec, NDP must choose Mulcair
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Former+says+Quebec+must+choose+Mulcair/6338626/story.html
He said the move would have troubling implications in a province where the Parti Quebecois and the Bloc Quebecois are rising in public opinion polls.
"If you really want to give separatism a boost, vote against Mulcair. It would create such a flap."
Edmonston portrayed Brian Topp, Broadbent's choice for the leadership, as a candidate backed by party apparatchiks in Ottawa.
"I would hate to see the Bloc Quebecois resuscitated by a stupid decision pushed, I believe, by the central office in Ottawa. It would be a really sad day."
Edmonston's warning is a particularly stinging rebuke to the fluently bilingual Topp, the former party president and the Quebec-born son of a francophone mother and anglophone father.
"It is my opinion that comments like these drive a wedge between NDP members, and that is uncalled for," Topp campaign spokesman Eric Demers said.
"We have a lot of support in Quebec and very strong endorsements from MPs like Francoise Boivin, Alexandre Boulerice and Sana Hassaina, who came on board after previously endorsing Thomas Mulcair.
"Brian was born in Longueuil, Que., and is perfectly bilingual. We signed over 2,000 new members in Quebec in the last weeks."
Edmonston is one of the few NDP figures who knew both Topp and Mulcair when the two candidates were young men.
Topp's small publishing company in Montreal published the Lemon-Aid books in the 1980s, and Topp worked on the victorious byelection campaign in 1990.
Topp, the choice of establishment figures such as Broadbent and former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow, was Edmonston's senior staffer in Ottawa after the 1990 byelection. Edmonston decided not to run again in the 1993 election, and Topp went on to work in Romanow's government.
Edmonston met Mulcair after giving a lecture on consumer rights at McGill University in the 1970s when the now Montreal MP was a law student there. After the lecture the two met, with Mulcair telling Edmonston he might "one day go into politics."
Edmonston said Topp is a strong campaign organizer who is making the same mistake as people such as former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and the late Quebec Liberal leader Claude Ryan — people who leaped straight into leadership roles with no political experience.
He said Mulcair is charismatic and has "electoral street cred" from winning elections both as a Quebec provincial Liberal and, since his 2007 byelection win, a federal New Democrat.
He said Topp lacks both the credibility that comes from winning elected office, and the personality to woo the electorate.
"You don't see passion in Brian. I don't see Brian feeling comfortable with people."
As for Mulcair's famously mercurial temper, Edmonston replied: "I like temper. I really like passion."
I have heard people say stuff like this on several occasions, and I have seen people put through the purity tests. I have been screamed at by some of our members on the phone for having the audacity to run a campaign against an incumbent Liberal, because "we're supposed to be the social conscience, not the government". And I am quite frankly tired of the sanctimonious lefter-than-thou BS some of the Topp camp has been spewing my way as a Mulcair supporter, when I have been a very active and generous party member for over 20 years. It's offensive and off-putting, not to mention disingenuous, given Topp's record as one of the people in charge of Saskatchewan in the 90s.
First of all, Jack was NOT universally revered in the Party until very recently before he died. I can tell you with assurance that he was actually widely detested by members here in Manitoba until last year. Many of the people I know on the left of the Party were very less than impressed with the steps Jack took toward "modernizing our discourse," and moving away from the "1950s boiler plate". Those steps seem to have paid off, since we lead amongst voters under 40 - in the 1990s no one under 40 would come anywhere near us.
No one is talking of "trashing" this legacy; a few of the candidates (Mulcair and Cullen especially) are actually proposing we continue it.
This whole "Tops for Topp - I miss Jack" thing is really offensive to me as someone who worked his butt off for the Party while Jack was leader, in that it implies that if we all REALLY loved Jack, we'd be "Tops for Topp" too. I loved, admired and respected Jack as did many others who are not supporting Topp. Playing on those heartstrings as Topp's campaign has been trying to do (3 e-mails touting Jack Layton's mother, for example) represents the basest degree of crass opportunism I have ever seen in the Party, and it frankly disgusts me.
Watching the last 2 weeks unfold, I seriously seriously regret having placed Topp 2nd on my ballot - I should have listened to my partner, who ranked him 8th out of 7.
It's amazing how much our polling numbers have improved in the face of a 2-week barrage of media reports touting Mulcair as the likely winner, isn't it?
She's not the only one. So does Harper and Rae Pauline Marois hoping Thomas Mulcair loses NDP leadership racehttp://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1149948--hebert-paul...
Mulcair is the first ready-for-prime-time Quebecer to bid for the leadership of the NDP. He has run a virtually error-free campaign. Given Quebec’s relatively low weight in the NDP membership, he owes his front-runner status to the positive impression he has clearly made in non-Quebec quarters. His leadership opponents, on the other hand, have failed to register in Quebec.
If he loses on Saturday, expect Marois to make the most of the notion that the NDP — while it was happy enough for the party to climb to its current position on the shoulders of Quebecers — did not want one of them to lead it. Ed Broadbent’s public salvo against Mulcair has sealed that narrative.
Last May, Quebecers of all stripes turned to the NDP because they were looking for a governing alternative to the Conservatives. From their perspective, passing over the leadership candidate considered the most likely to give Harper a run for his money in 2015 in favour of an untested second choice would be a strong signal that an impotent New Democrat official Opposition is not willing to help itself out of that impotence.
The NDP has never been much of a presence in the unity debate. Given its chronic absence from Quebec, it was a not a major player in the last two referendums. That would change if Mulcair became its leader.
No one in Quebec would classify Mulcair as a soft nationalist. He is the only NDP contender who has fought on the referendum frontlines. No one familiar with the province’s political culture could imagine him switching sides in a battle that defined his career until he joined the NDP or, for that matter, getting his adopted party in bed with Marois’s PQ.
Missed in the spectacular Bloc demise of the last federal election is the fact that the support of the NDP in Quebec also hinges on tens of thousands of essential federalist votes. That is even more true of Mulcair’s riding of Outremont, an area where the No vote prevailed in 1995.
Last May, almost two out of three Quebecers who supported Jean Chrétien in the Clarity Act election of 2000 voted for the NDP. For those voters, Mulcair’s federalist credentials and his past as a provincial Liberal were major attractions.
With Charest’s hold on power tenuous, with Harper’s Quebec ministers a ghostly presence in their home-province, and with the federal Liberal bloodline thinning in Quebec, Mulcair happens to be the leading federalist champion from Quebec in this Parliament.
Anyone in Marois’s position would wish that the NDP knock him off the leadership this weekend.
On the cooperation plan, Nathan Cullen, in the tele-town hall last week, said he wants to be leader, not dictator. He even mentioned that if he were to become leader, he could hold a referendum on it within the party. I e-mailed his campaign and got this in a reply when I asked about it.
So I think the fear that he would just do whatever he wants without consulting others is false. Besides, he doesn't seem like that kind of person to me anyway.
Get off it, guys.
No one is suggesting our history is devoid of accomplishments.
Everyone wants to accomplish more.
Everyone wants to build on our successes.
No one hates our history, no one is against the idea of becoming the government (a few anecdotes aside), no one thinks we became the opposition by accident, and no one thinks we've been such big failures that we need to change everything.
Add this to the pile of futile debates, along with topics such as "no, I love YOU more" and "why do you hate freedom?"
I listened in on the town hall, actually, and found that part reassuring.
Nathan Cullen minus the strategic cooperation thing... that's a winning non-combo.
The Alternate History side of me can't help but wonder how this race might have gone if Cullen had never made this proposal. Might he have gained momentum even sooner?
It wouldn't have gotten him all of the media coverage though. Half the campaign was spent talking about his idea, and in a race that has been dominated by style instead of substance, it provided pretty much the only real "policy" difference.
No...Cullen and his team played their campaign masterfully and need to be commended, regardless of the outcome on Saturday.
{martinsingh}You accused me of not reading the plan, but I actually did! WHY DID YOU LIE? {/martinsingh}
It won't just affect the targeted ridings. It will be the number one issue of the election campaign. The daily wrapups will be taken up with pinpointing and exploiting the inconsistencies in the two parties' platforms. Harper will present the case that this three-headed monster can't possibly agree on policy, let alone run the country. Meanwhile, the Liberals will be campaigning for government on a lefty-leaning platform with the NDP's imprimatur, and could easily scoop up those voters that went over the side in every election since 2004, while the basketcase NDP tries to define itself using the same terms that hobbled it in the past and that it just spent three election cycles breaking free from. If I were an MP anywhere in Ontario (except maybe Olivia, Charlie, Rafferty and Hyer and a couple others), I'd be gravely concerned about Liberal "poaching" in that scenario.
Fair points, But I think his debate performances also helped him.
This quote, Gunder, earns you my (not-so-illustrious) nomination for Quote of the Week
And agree with everything above. You actually make the case, without any shred of doubt, why such a scheme must NEVER be decided at the Riding Association level as Cullen proposes, but rather should be considered only by a plenary at the Convention. The risk of harm to ridings that have nothing to do with the deal is far too great!