final ndp leadership debate - vancouver

flight from kamakura wrote:

yeah, i'm feeling a lot more confident in my second choice support for topp, he has definitely raised his game.  it would be unjust if he went out before dewar, and it's a shame that circumstances (and a certain government) conspired to keep him out of that danforth seat, though i'm immensely pleased about the candidate we have there.

He'll win himself a seat, in good time.

It is interesting that more than a few people have talked about Topp's growth in his presentation skills. I haven't really noticed the growth but then again I always thought his communication skills were "alright" not great but alright. He is not my first choice but I may rank him second or third    

If Tom does win, and I'm convinced now more than ever that he will win, he might well want to consider giving Niki and Nathan the 2 highest second positions in the party as they are our future. 

I'm not a Topp supporter, but he did very well today. I stand by my assessment of Singh as the weakest tooday - by a mile.

God save our gracious Singh.

Mulcair: "people were coming after us because they perceive our campaign is going well". Tom defends his campaign saying they're going forward, not backward - I understand how older NDPers take offense at that. Tom repeats that he understands why he's getting attacked - because his campaign is doing well.

Mulcair again compared Harper to the PQ - he believes it's okay to spend public money for his own political purposes - "and we know what we'll do about that".

Boom Boom wrote:

Both Ashton and Cullen grilled on the 'localization' thing - I missed that part - what was it about???

Not sure, but I heard at least a few candidates say that campaigns need to be allowed more freedom and resources to do their own thing, instead of just slapping their name on the federal message. It sounds good, but Topp raised a good objection to it.

Good debate, overall. Final estimations of the candidates:

Singh is absolutely awful. Really, astonishingly bad. From his "as a pharmacist" line repetition, his rude refusal to apologize to Topp (and also the evident tension between him and Cullen), to his ending "God bless Canada". He is the worst candidate I could possibly imagine. 

Dewar was only marginally better than Singh - he is stiff, awkward, forced, flubs his lines, repeats other people's questions, and can't speak French. He would be an absolute disaster as leader.

Ashton remains as robotic as ever - she brought up "new politics" 4 times that I counted, as well as repeating her strange "Jack Layton generation" line. She has endless talking points memorized and rarely sounds like she's engaged in an actual discussion. Maybe in the future she will be able to improve to the level where she could be considered leadership material, but she's certainly not there yet. I give her a bonus point, however, for talking over Singh.

Topp was certainly better today than he has been for most of the campaign. That said, his attacks on Mulcair seemed to fall flat, and I didn't like that Topp didn't look at Mulcair while asking him a question, even though they were standing next to each other. I still think he's a poor public speaker, and his humour comes across flatly, or not at all. I can't see what the establishment sees in him.

Mulcair was good, but he is still far too reliant on reading his prepared opening and closing statements -  has he rehearsed them at all? He was vague at times, and a bit "fake" sounding at times as well. He was also rather ineffective today against the questioning from Nash - where is his fire??? He is clearly not aiming at improving his standing with any dramatic moves - he's trying to hold his ground. Not sure if that was the right approach for the last debate.

Nash gave a good performance today, better than the last couple debates, I think. Came across as genuine, and was strong in her questioning of Mulcair. She did have an odd moment talking about salmon - not sure what that was about; I think she missed telling us the point of her own story. But a good day for her, and I think she has strengthened her position today.

Cullen is the best speaker of the bunch. He connects with the pubilc, again showed his humour, his ability to cut through to the heart of the matter, and shows a lot of passion and strength when needed, and on important matters. His questioning of Singh was sharp, and his evident distaste for Singh's answer was obvious. Cullen made several good points, including lowering the voting age to 16. He was strong and appealing under questioning. Definitely my favorite candidate, and I think today's debate was a good one for solidifiying and probably greatly expanding his support.

(on CBC)

Peggy just said the final ballot will be her and Mulcair.

Brian Topp just said Mulcair had been unclear ealier, but was clear today. 

Topp believes Tom wants to move the party to the centre, and that's wrong.

Brian's post-debate comments are all attacking Mulcair.

Now he's attacking Cullen's co-operation proposal as disastrous potentially for the party.

Brian just said Miki Ashton is still his Number Two.

Howard wrote:

Erik Redburn wrote:

Howard wrote:

socialdemocraticmiddle wrote:

If I'm an undecided at this point in the race (which I am), I'm starting to like Cullen a lot more (which I am), perhaps even in spite of his cooperation plan. His questions and answers have cut through a lot of BS. He also seems to have the most positive and unifying demeanor -- despite disagreement -- which matters to me considering some of the negativity we've seen in the campaign.

He uses a lot of alienating language vis à vis Harper: "boneheaded" "clear and present danger" "worst" etc

This is a concern for me as Cullen reaches out to current Conservative (or {baby blue} Liberal) supporters

 

I doubt anyone who was a boneheaded enough to ever vote for Harper would ever vote NDP

Ask NDPers in the West about that one

I live in the West, and most of the old Reform-NDP switches have already taken place.

Brian Topp is trying to cast Mulcair as a "centrist" in contrast to the "progressive left" and then his examples of the "progressive left" are the British Labour Party and Barack Obama. He mentioned Obama during the debate and again in the post-debate press conference. If that is Topp's idea of "progressive left", then he should have absolutely no problem with Mulcair. His discourse makes no sense.

TheArchitect wrote:

After watching this final debate, I think Topp has sealed the deal for me.

Before, I'd been liking his substance but concerned about his presentation skills.  But his improvement through the course of this campaign has been astonishing.  And today, I'd say his presentation was the strongest of any candidate on the stage.

I'd actually say Topp was still mediocre today, Brad. I think Peggy had a much stronger debate than in the past. She did quite well. But no one "broke out"... there was no defining moment... no game change... so the win I think would go to the frontrunner, Mulcair.

I also had a robo-call NDP leadership poll today that annoyed me - it came right in the middle of the debate!

Two questions - Who is your #1 choice (I answered Cullen), and Who is your #2 choice (I hit a random number - frankly, if they're going to interrupt the leadership debate, they deserve to have skewed polling numbers!)

janfromthebruce wrote:

what's the link to the CBC interview?

I was watching it live on CBC NewsWorld on satellite TV.

I think Singh will be shut out by the other six somehow  - I think he really did harm to himself today by refusing to apologise. There was a shot of Brian Topp right afterwards, and he looked hurt by Singh's refusal. Cullen called Brian Topp a dedicated comrade and a very hard worker for the NDP, and was quite taken aback that Singh would not apologise, but instead went into an explanation that his parents brought him up to always tell the truth... seemed to me he was just digging himself deeper into a hole. I found it sad.

*groan*

Here's my 2 cents.

Public debates aren't high school debates. You don't get points for being right, let alone proving someone else wrong. The measure is always whether you're persuading the audience to your position (or non-position, as the case may be).

Cullen had the best performance by this measure, IMO. If you're an undecided at this point and you just tuned into this debate, you left thinking "who was that baldheaded guy?" For three reasons. People have mentioned his sense of humor. But that shouldn't take away from his very direct and clear answers on all progressive issues, like the environment, taxes, immigration, crime. The last thing is his sense of unity and positivity. This is best illustrated by his question about Singh's attacks on Topp, which made other parts of the debate seem like bickering in contrast.

Topp had a great debate too, IMO. Topp had fallen off the radar a bit, even among people who were open to supporting him. This debate he actually had a few inspiring and insightful moments. (I personally liked his answer on the arts, but his opener/closer were great, among others.) Tonight he positioned himself well as the guy to defend Jack's legacy, even if that exaggerates the contrasts with the other candidates.

Mulcair and Nash come next, and only by default. Both had excellent performances. Mulcair has been very consistent across all the debates, where Peggy stepped it up from some less compelling performances in the past. I don't think a truly undecided voter would look at them and be converted. But if you had heard that your friends were planning on supporting Nash/Mulcair, and were leaning towards them with a few questions, then today you would like what you see. Their supporters can be very proud.

Ashton had a solid performance, and got very specific and inspiring on some questions. The platitudes weren't really effective, IMO, and shouldn't be confused with actual inspiration. But she held her ground and probably picked up a few supporters on her own merits.

Dewar. Every time I see him talk, words like "bumbling" and "flailing" come to mind.

Singh. I'm not saying he had to apologize. But considering his crappy explanation for his attacks on Topp, I think he came off as very unsympathetic.

Last thing, because it's come up a few times here...

For all the emphasis on babble about an "anti-Mulcair" movement, and all the hooting and hollaring whenever he's asked a question, I felt as though it was complete non-factor in this debate. A lot of fair questions lobbed at Mulcair, and he parried them competently. Again, if you already hated Mulcair, you hated his answers. If you already liked Mulcair, you liked his answers. If you don't really know what the big difference is between Mulcair and the other candidates, you probably saw some competent Q&A, and paid more attention to the rest of the debate. Since Mulcair is the frontrunner, I think a "parry" is good for him in the sense that you only need to score big points if you're losing.

Erik Redburn wrote:

Howard wrote:

Erik Redburn wrote:

Howard wrote:

socialdemocraticmiddle wrote:

If I'm an undecided at this point in the race (which I am), I'm starting to like Cullen a lot more (which I am), perhaps even in spite of his cooperation plan. His questions and answers have cut through a lot of BS. He also seems to have the most positive and unifying demeanor -- despite disagreement -- which matters to me considering some of the negativity we've seen in the campaign.

He uses a lot of alienating language vis à vis Harper: "boneheaded" "clear and present danger" "worst" etc

This is a concern for me as Cullen reaches out to current Conservative (or {baby blue} Liberal) supporters

 

I doubt anyone who was a boneheaded enough to ever vote for Harper would ever vote NDP

Ask NDPers in the West about that one

 

I live in the West, and most of the old Reform-NDP switches have already taken place.

Then we might as well throw in the towel, because there are not enough Liberal votes left in enough ridings for the NDP to form the next government under the current distribution of seats. Or if there are, it is a very very very very narrow path to victory. 

Take your perspective and take a look at Québec. It could easily have been argued that the 40% of the vote the Bloc Québecois got would never vote for a federalist party. In fact, that was the exact nonsense the Ottawa media talked about for the last 10 years; that is, how the Bloc's 40% made it so difficult to have a majority government in Canada because the federal parties were guaranteed to split the remaining 60% of the vote. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The NDP decimated the BQ, the LPC, and the CPC in Québec last election. They took about half of the Bloc Québecois support, including committed soveriengtists. So the door is never closed, unless you close it yourself.