NDP Revival in Newfoundland and Labrador?

The convention is being streamed on youtbe my the Mike Goosney campaign. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8u9fD-Be0o

NorthReport wrote:

Newfoundlander Mucho thanks for the live feed link to the convention Which leadership hopefuls have spoken so far?

Sorry I'm just seeing this now. I never got to see Chris Bruce speak but he supposedly did a god job, again, and spoke without notes.

If anyone is able to get NTV they are starting a broadcast now. I believe Jack Harris is joining them.

 

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Any chancd that the NDP could survive based on a wrap-around from the PCs falling into third?

PC support has been consistent at around 30% for the last couple of years despite a very unpopular leader, leadership embaressments, and one controversial move after another. Unless the upcoming budget really hurts them I would say the lowest their support would be in an election is between 25%-30%. The party also has more suppot in Eastern Newfoundland, which is where most of the seats will be. So if they can keep their current support levels then it means the NDP would need to take about 20 points from the Liberals to catchup to the PCs, which would bring us back to the three-way split in voter intention we saw prior to the revolt.

No suprise, McCurdy wins.

Basement Dweller wrote:

The polls may not show it now, but this is a very good thing for the NF&Lab NDP.

This should not be taken as an attack but what makes you say this? Do you live in NFLD or know a lot about it?

I lived there for many years and my wife is from there. Yes, I follow Newfoundland politics and was actively involved in Newfoundland politics at one time.

It will be interesting to see if the NDP will actually do anything to build on this new found support. It seemed like many people's reaction to their surge was "of course they're up but it won't last." The party has never bothered to organize at the district level, when they were riding first in the polls a few years ago and had 5 MHAs I think they had 9 district assocations in place out of 48 districts.

Their AGM last weekend was again held in St. John's - they never go outside the capital city - and they had just 80 people there, which is lower than it has been in recent years. For comparison, when the PCs were struggling in 2013 and in third place I remember hearing that they had like 800 people at their AGM. They were of course in government and were better organized but it's still goes to show that a party can attract a large gathering. 

They seemed to put a good executive in place, although the main people are still from St. John's, so we'll see if they will actually get the work done to organize the party. Their job, and Earle McCurdy's job - over the next 18 months or so should be on the gorund organization and then get ready to select a new leader. Despite his strong endrosement last weekened McCurdy is not becoming premier, his job needs to be to get the party ready for the next person. The CRA poll showing the NDP in first place - by a narrow margin - also showed McCurdy trailing his party significantly when it came to who'd make the best premier. He's barely ahead of Dwight Ball, and he's been faced with scandal after scandal with questions around whether he's going to resign. Former Premier Paul Davis has a large lead when it comes to who'd make the best premier and he was just turfed from office after his party's worst showing in 40+ years. It won't take the public long to forget the mess the PC Party caused when they get a new leader in place so the NDP need to get ready for that. 

The NDP seemed to be reviving but their support has once again fallen. While they started off the year at 24% their support has gone as low as 12.5%. There was a lot of polling done this year and support for the NDP has pretty much been in the mid to upper teens, which is historically good for them. However, at a time when the NDP should be doing well in Newfoundland and Labrador, they have not been able to capitalize on an unpopular Liberal government and the memories of an unpopular PC administration.

There's another by-election being held in Topsail-Paradise on January 24th and it'll be interesting to see how the NDP perform, but once again they seem to be disorganized. The seat should be an easy win for the PCs, as it was held by former premier Paul Davis, but it's a suburban seat in the St. John's area where the NDP had previously started gaining support in. In 2011 the NDP won over 30% of the vote in suburban St. John's, that dropped to 8% in 2015. If they want to start making gains this area is key for them. As was the case in the last by-election in Windsor Lake, the NDP were slow to organize. Paul Davis announced in October that he was stepping down at the beginning of November. The PCs had their candidate in place almost immediately. The Liberals only announced their candidate several weeks ago when they announced the date of the by-election. After the by-election was finally called the NDP opened nominations, only to acclaim an unknown candidate. This is the second time in a row that the by-election was called and the NDP did not have a candidate in place, the last by-election was called rather quickly so it's somewhat understandable that they weren't prepared right away, but they've had nearly 2 months this time. Their lack of organization seems to be their biggest hurdle in making solid gains.

Newfoundlander, I really appreciate your insight into Newfoundland politics. I have a question though. If I'm understanding you correctly, I'm hearing you say that regardless of support in the polls, the NDP currently lacks the infrastructure needed to capitalize on that in an election campaign and win seats. Is this correct? I think that is an inherent challenge with any small party, if the NDP in Newfoundland is officially a party. Yet there is another possible opening for the NDP. What do you think of the possibility of a minority government being elected this Fall? I would think it's the best shot for the NDP, because in a minority government, suddenly all voices become relevant.

Also, the Greens in PEI seem to be in good standing and have a realistic shot of winning, despite having the current representation in PEI that the NDP does in Newfoundland. What do you feel distinguishes those 2 situations?

Bit of a strange story. NDP leader Gerry Rogers will not confirm if she’s seeking re-election in an election that could be held within a few months.

http://ntv.ca/no-concrete-answers-from-ndp-on-gerry-rogers-election-plans/

The NDP's other sitting MHA, former leader Lorraine Michael, will be 76 years old in March. Is she running again? Could the party be shut out of the legislature completely this fall?

robbie_dee wrote:

The NDP's other sitting MHA, former leader Lorraine Michael, will be 76 years old in March. Is she running again? Could the party be shut out of the legislature completely this fall?

Possibly.  And in a way, it would serve them right for orchestrating a putsch against Michael for no valid reason.  She had the party in a strong position in the polls-all she was guilty of was opposing neoliberalism when most of the NDP MHA's cared more about keeping the party Blairite than about making any electoral gains.  Everything dismal in the party's fortunes since then is the responsibility of the anti-Michaelites and their treachery.

Alison Coffin to seek NDP leadership; Mark Gruchy thinking it over (CBC)

Quote:

Alison Coffin said Wednesday she will put her name in the running for the leadership of Newfoundland and Labrador's New Democrats.

Gerry Rogers — who defeated Coffin 10 months ago in a two-candidate leadership race — announced Tuesday she will resign as soon as the party chooses a new leader. Rogers will also not run in the next general election.

"I know that our province needs a shakeup in government, and I think I can provide that change," Coffin told CBC News.

There may be other candidates to challenge Coffin, too.

On Wednesday afternoon, former provincial party president Mark Gruchy said he is also considering a run at the leadership, saying that a number of people have asked him to throw his hat into the race.
***
In a statement emailed to CBC News, Gruchy said the biggest priority for the party is unity.

"The primary job of the next leader of the party will be to build cohesion and coherence within," he said.

"This is the overriding imperative. It simply has to be dealt with. Confronting this task is going to define the party in this province for years to come."
***
Former NDP leader Lorraine Michael said Tuesday she will seek re-election as an MHA, but will not enter the leadership race.

Newfoundlander_Labradorian wrote:

The NDP under Michael prior to the caucus implosion might have been polling stronger but I think much of it was a mile wide and an inch deep. There were many issues with how she was leading the party, particularly from an organizational standpoint. 

Well, gee, the revolt and the implosion and the "leaders" what remained of the NFLDNDP brought in to replace her REALLY sorted all of THAT OUT.  The passionless, cynical right-wing hacks who pushed her out really pulled that organizational thing together.  Definitely.

Newfoundlander_Labradorian wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

Newfoundlander_Labradorian wrote:

The NDP under Michael prior to the caucus implosion might have been polling stronger but I think much of it was a mile wide and an inch deep. There were many issues with how she was leading the party, particularly from an organizational standpoint. 

Well, gee, the revolt and the implosion and the "leaders" what remained of the NFLDNDP brought in to replace her REALLY sorted all of THAT OUT.  The passionless, cynical right-wing hacks who pushed her out really pulled that organizational thing together.  Definitely.

Yes because they disagreed with her they must be cynical right-wing hacks.

Given that what they opposed her on was her idea of allying the party with the social movements, and that what they wanted instead was for the party to stay with the hopeless strategy of obsessing on "the centre ground", and given that two of four authors of the leakeed caucus letter ended up defecting to the Liberals, largely yes.  Other than Gerry Rogers, Can you point to any of those who forced her out as a person with any genuine commitment to economic and social justice, as anyone who wanted the NNDP to actually be significantly different than the Liberals or the PC's?  In any case, why would you still defend the ones who forced her out when nothing but electoral calamity came of it?  

Newfoundlander_Labradorian wrote:

I would argue that those caucus members represented a significant portion of the party. And would calamity have occurred had Lorraine Michael stepped aside when her entire caucus asked her too? 

(on edit) Misread the question.  To clarify.  OK...here's the calamity which would have happened: the election of a new NDP leader who would have been well to Lorraine Michael's right-an outcome which would, in itself, have made it impossible to argue that anyone at all should have voted NDP in the subsuquent election.  Why wasn't it enough for her to offer a vote on her continued leadership?  Why was standing down the ONLY acceptable choice as you see it?  And what possible justification could there have been for leaking the letter?  It's not as though THAT could lead to any positive outcome and it goes without saying that, if she had just stood down, no leader elected after it became clear that she'd been forced out by caucus could ever have unified the party or offered any program worth voting for.  You can't elect left-of-centre governments after that kind of treachery occurs.                                                                                                Given how badly things went in election after Michael was stabbed in the back, how could anything other than calamity have occurred if she'd stepped down earlier?   BTW, there's been no recent record of success for any provincial NDP anywhere that has obsessed with winning over "the center", i.e., the socially progressive, fiscally conservative voter who, as it turns out, doesn't really exist anywhere.  

I hope that whoever does lead the NDP there gets it together, and I'm sorry if I've sounded blunt, nothing personal-it just frustrates me to see the damage done by the caucus implosion, and I hope you can at least accept that there was no excuse to leak the caucus letter demanding Michael's resignation to the press, that that should have been a strictly internal matter.