BC NDP Leadership Election Part II

Brian White wrote:

 

By the way, in holey Ireland, the leadership campaign in a party lasted less than 2 weeks. 

 

I don't see why anyone in Canada should be using the leadership process of the FAIL party in Ireland as a role model - its only the the most incompetent, paternalistic excreable party in the entire western world.

It may be messy - but there is something to be said for having a wide open leadership process where tens of thousands of party members are able to participate as opposed to having a 19th century closed process where a bunch of old hacks sitting in parliemtn are the only ones who get to choose the leader. If the BC NDP used those rules - there would have been a simple straight up vote in caucus last November and carol James would have retained the leadership 21 votes to 13 - end of story.

Brian, I really don't get where you're coming from with wanting to see a short leadership campaign and the less signups the better?  I know you have a strong interest in democracy and combatting the trend of decreasing voter participation and engagement.  I think leadership contests are a decent way to get new people and new ideas engaged in the electoral process, I signed up a few people but I could have signed up more with a bit more time.  I can appreciate the party wanting to guard against a takeover by people with no interest in the party and the fear of a snap election but I think it would have been better to have waited at least another month for the cutoff. 

We don't really know what happened with Dix and the signups, I think some of your claims seem pretty extreme and Lali and Farnworth are definitely not neutral observers.  That said, I think some caution towards Dix is jusitified, his record does suggest someone that isn't against bending the rules.  That's a two-edged sword as far as I'm concerned.  On the one hand, I'm alright with someone that isn't afraid to streetfight a little.  Against the far-right extremist crooks we've seen running the province this last decade, that might be necessary if the NDP has any hope of gaining power.  Of course, it isn't unlikely that once in power this same ability to play dirty might be directed against progressive dissent, something we certainly saw during Clark's reign.  So yeah, I think Dix should be watched carefully.

Of the candidates and their platforms, Simons is by far the closest to what I believe in and I hope he does well because I think he'd be a genuinely progressive and responsive leader.  However, of the three 'favorites', Dix sounds far better than the other two.  Horgan sounds a lot like James with his plattitudes and his pro-business rhetoric.  Farnworth is sucking up to the Harperite crowd and their reactionary prison-building movement which promises economic and social trouble for our province.  Dix, at least is saying a lot of the right things, that might be as good as we can do.