ONDP Leadership thread II - discuss, debate, post news here!

Scott Piatkowski wrote:

Yesterday in Cambridge, Bisson used a line that I hadn't heard before. Oddly enough, he's started touting the fact that he is the SECOND YOUNGEST member of caucus during debates. With the person who is the actual youngest member of caucus sitting beside you, it's a tough argument to make (i.e. age is a factor, so vote for the second youngest).

I shared a quick WTF-glance with Andrea's tour person when he said it twice yesterday. I really don't know what he's thinking. If he was saying 'Isn't it sad that the second youngest member of caucus is 51; We need more need blood.' that would be different. But, he's not. Anyone want to explain the rationale (assuming this argument works on them)?

Scott.... maybe it had something to do with the fact that while he is the 2nd youngest candidate at 51 (only like 5 years older than Ms. Horwath), he has over 19 years of elected experience at Queen's Park in both government and opposition. That combination of youth and experience is something that many members are looking for in this race, especially these days. The argument is that he's young enough to be in this for the long haul to rebuild the party, but has the most elected experience of the whole group. That's a powerful combination.

Here's some fun facts:

- Tommy Douglas became Leader of the Saskatchewan CCF at age 38.

- Ed Schreyer became Leader of the Manitoba CCF at age 34.

- Stephen Lewis became Leader of the Ontario NDP at age 32.

But now we're actually having a serious conversation about whether a 46 year old working mom who has served as an MPP, City Councillor, community organizer etc. has enough "experience" to lead the NDP?

I know some folks are scared of change but this is crazy.

I don't think Gilles should apologize at all. I just think his "experience" is not his best selling point. 20 years as a backbencher doesn't impress me much. If it did, I'd think Tony Ruprecht was God.

I'm less interested in how good a job each of the candidates can do of padding their resumes. I want to know about their actual capabilities. When the federal party last chose a leader - paper Nystrom was the most qualified and Layton was the least qualified. But, I think that almost everyone would agree that Layton was a better choice as leader than Nystrom would have been.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that anyone was actually padding their resume. I guess I was thinking of all the dirt flying about whether or Tabuns can say he was Deputy Mayor and whether or not so-and so actually did anything as a backbencher etc...anyone can make themselves sound like a big shot on paper. I'm more interested in personal qualities and traits that each candidate has.

I went into this campaign quite undecided – and I even joked with a few friends that this is the first time someone would actually mark me a 3 in NDP vote during an election!

While I was honestly open to all the candidates, Bisson quickly ruled himself out in my books. His “tough of crime” and “wealth creation” statements have been vague, but they strike me as code for steering the party drastically to the right. While I’m all for modernizing, and even moderating, our party, I don’t want to see us adopting our adversaries positions on crime and economics. And while I would have supported a candidate from Northern Ontario if I thought they were the best potential leader, I do think our next one needs more urban sensibilities.

Prue also quickly became problematic for me. And it’s too bad, because with his strong municipal background, I expected to like him more. But his campaign has lacked any coherence and so I worry about what kind of leader he would be. At times he has positioned himself as the insurgent candidate: opposed to the party “establishment” and for empowering the grassroots to decide controversial policy stances. But he has mostly been all over the place: refusing to answer which side of the separate school funding issue he stands on and promoting lower corporate taxes. Worst of all, he has advocated that the NDP court large corporate donations as a way to pay off our campaign debt. This is both a terrible policy position for a progressive and terrible politics for a politician of any stripe (imagine promoting yourself as FOR the special interests or IN the pocket of big-business).

So that really left Peter Tabuns and Andrea Horwath. While I like them both a lot, I was really hoping that Andrea would win me over. I like that she’s from Hamilton and that she has a strong background in social justice, the labour movement and municipal politics. And, I thought, that all things being equal it was “time” to have a woman lead the Ontario NDP.

Unfortunately, Andrea failed to impress me beyond her impressive CV. During the debate I saw, I thought she was the weakest performer with the least substance to her proposals. She consistently talked about “growing the grass roots” but failed to articulate one example of how that could be done, or, more importantly, how SHE was doing that very thing during this campaign. Furthermore, with an impressive list of supporters that includes many of the Ontario’s major labour leaders, I would have thought that her organization would be equally impressive. In my view, her organization has fallen seriously short, which gives me great concern when choosing a leader who we hope will rebuild our organizing capacity. While I have received 3 personal calls from Peter Tabuns (and two more from campaign workers), I have not heard one word from Andrea or her campaign.

Peter Tabuns is not the perfect candidate and may not be the perfect leader. But he has proven to me that he knows how to organize, how to attract good people and how to articulate a plan for the party and Ontario. I have faith that with Peter at the helm, we can rebuild our fundraising and organizing capacity. And, unlike the other leadership candidates, at least he’s taking the time to call our members and listen to their ideas.

Hislop... just to clarify one of your points, for what it's worth. Gilles hasn't been talking about adopting the other parties position on issues like crime and the economy, actually it's been quite the opposite. His point has been that we as a party have been silent on issues like crime and that we don't talk about it from the social democratic view point. His point wasn't having our party take a "tough on crime" approach like the Liberals and Tories, but to have our party talk to what we would do in regards to the issue. Let's fact it, the core constituency that we represent as New Democrats are the on the bottom of the socio-economic scale, and they are the one who statistically are the most likely to be the victims of crime and most likely to be those committing those crimes. That being the case, we as a party need to have a response that's consistent with our principles, and that's something that we haven't done in past elections.

As for "wealth creation", I don't think that this is that aweful to talk about. Let's face it: when the economy is going well, employers are in a better position to pay more to their employees, more families having a better standard of living and through taxation, the government has more funds to administer any programs that we feel that we need. Ontario is better off when more of it's workers and families are making more money, creating "wealth", as it were. 

At the end of it, I don't think that Gilles was trying to talk in code or anything like that. What it is about is taking a different approach to what we talk about. It's about widening the scope of what we talk about and therefore making ourselves more relevant. At the end of the day, if we are ever going to form government again in this province, we need to talk about all the issues across the spectrum and talk about them from the social democratic perspective. If we don't show the people of Ontario that we aren' thinking about the whole spectrum, then we shouldn't be surprised that Ontarians won't consider us an option to form government.

Best of luck with your decision.

Maybe. I doubt it. The NDP still tends to score highest support amongst 18-35 year olds.

32 sounds a lot younger to me now than it did back then, I'll tell you ;-)

In any party, the kinds of people who have the time and money and interest to attend an out of town convention tend to be older.

But, the federal NDP convention in Quebec City actually had a lot of young people. But let's face it - the federal party has become very hip and knows how to put on a good show and have a fun event. The ONDP is a very dull institution. 

If I had to choose between going to a federal NDP convention in Yellowknife in the dead of winter - or going to an ONDP convention across the street from my house - I go to the Yellowknife.

Sunday Hat wrote:

 Andrea has put the jobs crisis front and centre. She has earned the support of workers and their unions (she's got more endorsements from organized labour then the other candidates combined) . . .

I think that's true. And that statement was made before Leo Gerard and Ken Neuman endorsed her.

There's an odd silence here about how she did that and what it means. I find it highly reassuring. These guys aren't impressed with superficial virtues. 

Scott Piatkowski wrote:

Bisson used a line that I hadn't heard before. Oddly enough, he's started touting the fact that he is the SECOND YOUNGEST member of caucus during debates.

Actually I like that line, but maybe that's my anti-extreme bias. Pollsters will tell you that some folks will never choose the outliers in the range. I wish our Greens would be more strident, as they are in Europe; it would make the NDP look like the second-most-left party. Youth if necessary, but not necessarily youth. For example, I like to buy the second-cheapest brand, not the cheapest.

Still, the second-youngest candidate remains my second choice.

Greens will never become strident because it does not become the libertarian.

Although their faith in the market to solve the carbon question must be a bit shaken by now.

Just wish New Democrats could get a bit more excited and inventive about solving it (the libs have again stolen the green economy thunder).

I think that's accurate - particularly in the Northeast. But I don't see him growing much beyong this base. 25 per cent won't win it.

Of course we will never know how different regions of the province voted because results won't be published by riding. I suspect that Bisson will get a block of votes from the north, but that everyone else will rank him dead last - so he'll have no growth potential. I'm not saying that he is the worst candidate or that he deserves to have that happen. I'm just saying what I think is going to happen.

right round round round

ETA totally groovy pete burns still

Sunday Hat wrote:

northwestern_lad wrote:

Of course, that's assuming that he Zero support anywhere else in the membership and Zero support in affiliated labour, which is far from being the case.

I didn't assume that. I  just don't assume he will get every single vote in the North.

Just as I don't assume that the others will get every single vote in their back yards....

and i'll save foxy the trouble... round and round and round

Straight Goods has supporters of the candidates writing about why they support who they support.

Do you have a link?

Tabuns and Andrea sure seem to generate a lot of garbage for a pair of so called environmentalists. My favourite peace of campaign literature came from "The Desk OF Andrea Horwath" , yes she is the youngest candidate, all that was missing was for her to dot her " i's" with little hearts. If that's the type of intellectual giant you want as a leader it should provide good comedic fodder for this hour has 22 minutes.

Tabuns high end glossy hand outs should be decorating landfill sites for the next decade, and how much electricity has he used with all his videos on U Tube?

At one time I was for Peter, now I just see his own self serving philosophy for what it is. Especially when your past comes back to haunt you.

Alphasix,  ok I'll bite. That last bit of tripe against those 2 candidates is the absolutely silliest I've so far read in this thread. "Electricity" being used for (only 1 candidates) videos? LOL. "glossy" pamphlets? If I hadn't read your earlier posts I'd think you were being sarcastic. Not to delve into the details here, but ALL THE CANDIDATES put out glossy pamphlets (I would dare suggest they were ALL made by unions and recyclable... in fact I have all four candidates pamphlets right in front of me) and yes, ALL HAVE VIDEOS, for like, you know, CAMPAIGNING. 

Next election, how would you recommend the NDP communicate it's message? Smoke signals? (or would that leave too big a carbon footprint?). 

A note about the way you diminish the other candidates rather than give reasons to support you own: You are doing nothing but damaging your own reputation (and by extension your preferred candidate) by doing so. Furthermore, the intellectual dishonesty to suggest any of the 4 NEXT POTENTIAL LEADERS suffers from some sort of diminished capacity is pretty sad. I have a preferred candidate, as most of us do. But I have to say you stated something that I construe as pretty damn sexist, as well as ridiculous. 

You want to influence peoples votes, then I would suggest you start talking about the reasons to vote FOR your candidate not throwing mud at the others. (which mostly, as seen by the recent press release mentioned above, tend to be mistruths AT BEST anyhow. This BTW applies to everyone who has been attacking ANY candidate with, dare I say it, Liberal tactics.)

I have seen the some silly attacks on all of them (Like Gilles not using a union bug on his GLOSSY PAMPHLET just for example ergo he's anti union.) Stupid, childish and quite ridiculous.

And Sunday Hat called you out, quite correctly, on who you've been shilling for (albeit extremely negatively).

alphasix actual wrote:

My favourite peace of campaign literature came from "The Desk OF Andrea Horwath" , yes she is the youngest candidate, all that was missing was for her to dot her " i's" with little hearts.

You know, I've let a lot of subtle sexism pass without comment during this campaign. But, this is pure over the top unvarnished paternalism.

Do you really think that's going to help your candidate. I certainly hope that you aren't being paid by the Prue campaign to post here because, if you are, they should ask for their money back.

P.S. On the environmental question, at least Andrea's campaign sent only one mailing to the four members in my house. Others have sent four. BTW, I'm using electricity to send this message.

double post

True enough.

I know people in the NDP like to blame vast media conspiracies for setbacks but can we not accept that it's possible the Star said Peter Tabuns was an uninspiring single-issue candidate because they thought he was an uninspiring single-issue candidate? I voted NDP all of my life and it's pretty much the conclusion I reached.

Anyone care to make an estimate as to how many members will be at convention? 

I've never been but plan on attending this one and would like to know what to expect.

All I know right now is that it costs a whack of dough and I don't think I get a free t shirt......

Anyone out there have any experience on this one?

What do I wear?

Should I leave my inflatable hammer and sickle at home?