NDP Leadership Thread - Part 3

Stockholm wrote:

I hope that there are a good half a dozen or more strong candidates for the leadership including someone like Chisholm - at the very least it will be a great chance to introduce Canadians to a wide range of NDP luminaries and showcase what an NDP cabinet might look like after 2015.

I don't often agree with you Stock but that should be the function of this leadership campaign for the NDP.  If it turns into a coronation then people will buy into the MSM mime that the party was only Jack and his coattails.

It is for that reason I want to see people with not enough French to ultimately win still run.  They will be cabinet ministers and need to have their profiles enhanced as well.

Newfoundlander_Labradorian wrote:

I think this leadership race could end up being similar to the 2006 Liberal leadership.

I think we could refrain from speculating based on what the media is telling us and wait until a race is declared and we have candidates running before we say what the race is going to be like.

I like what ottawaobserver has been saying about not reading too much into the media speculation, especially after she has pointed out how out-of-touch and wrong the media luminaries often end up being. I see what appears to be a great deal of speculation on leadership based on what these media luminaries are saying, and that suggests to me that these people are letting the media lead them around. Come on people, we are New Democrats, we like to think for ourselves, let's do that!

Northern Shoveler wrote:

Maybe it could call itself the Democratic Liberal Party.  There is no doubt the Liberal Party ruled for much of the last century using that configuration. It is a proven winner.

A lot of parties have ruled for extensive periods of time. I don't think formally "winning" is the goal of the NDP as a progressive social-democratic party.

Stockholm wrote:

The 2006 Liberal leadership contest was a DELEGATED process and that meant that you had all the psychological and organizational factors on the convention floor that allowed for a third place candidate to come up the middle. I think its much less likely for this phenomenon to happen in an OMOV process with preferential ballotting where 99% of the votes will be ranked and cast in advance of any convention.

I think the preferential ballotting allows for a third place candidate to easily come up the middle, if they can become the second choice of the other candidates.

Stockholm wrote:

Its not about becoming the "second choice of other candidates" its about becoming the "second choice of other candidates' supporters". As a member, I would probably get my ballot/online link some time before the actual vote date and let's say I decide to vote (just as a fantasy) Megan Leslie 1, Brian Topp 2, Thomas Mulcair 3 and Barry Weisleder 4 :-) it won't matter if after the first count Megan Leslie announced she was backing Mulcair because my vote would have already been cast and would not be changeable.

I remember very well the contest for the ONDP leadership in 2009 where people just didn't seem to be able to get this into their skulls. People would go on and on that because there was some bad blood between organizers working on the Tabuns and Prue campaigns - that somehow this meant that all the rank and file members voting for them would have the same attitude as the people working on the campaigns and would rank each other dead last. Well guess what - it turns out that Member X who lives in Beaches-East York and has no direct involvement in the campaign - decides to vote Prue first because he is her local MPP and then she ranks Tabuns 2nd because he is from the riding next door and he also ran in B-EY.

My point is that there may be all kinds of rivalries and cleavages between the candidates and their teams - but little of that will ever percolate down to the individual member level in this kind of OMOV process - and that's why its very hard for an "anyone but so-and-so" campaign to happen.

I meant the second choice of those candidates supporters.

Lord Palmerston wrote:

artemmedv wrote:

A lot of parties have ruled for extensive periods of time. I don't think formally "winning" is the goal of the NDP as a progressive social-democratic party.

Topp and Lavigne would beg to differ.

Jack would have, too.

Winning is the goal, how do you expect to do something with your principles when one is not in power?

I dont view mulcair and topp to be rae and iggy. Iggy came from the right and rae from the left of the libs. Topp is seen as a moderate, all we truely know about him is his intelligence from his writing, nothing about his ideological positions aside from the word moderate and nothing of his speaking abilities. Mulcair is a former liberal and has been described by Ian Capstick and the centre leaning wing of the party. I also don't know if Mulcair's positions have changed since hes now in a social democratic party.  Perceptions of the viablity of the so called "third way" have diminished after the defeat of blair/brown's new labour and the election of ed miliband over his brother.

I don't personally believe Mulcair is in the running. This is just more media hype that somehow, Mulcair is massing Quebec and quebec mps against his rivals in order to ascend to power. An utter garbage description of things from the media. It assumes that all Quebec mps lean to the centre and support Mulcair over all others because he is from Quebec. It assumes that Mulcair has leadership ambitions which was a story created by the media. Ian has said before that the deputies are not trying to secede Jack, and I will trust him over Evan Soloman's assumptions.

A cautionary tale.  I was a Blaikie fan being an old prairie Tommy Douglas social democrat, but I asked my local MP (NDP of course) who he thought would be the best person to lead the party, since he works with them all the time, and he said Jack Layton. He was right.  I think you have to be at close quarters with people to tell who has the best leadership qualities.  All the media speculation and outside of party speculation is just nonsense.