Why is he not running in Danforth?
Although I assume Harper will wait a long time to call the by-election of whichever riding he runs in just to cause trouble.
NDP Leadership Thread - Part 42
Thu, 2011-12-01 23:12
#102
Thu, 2011-12-01 23:21
#103
Incidentally, Hebert was 100% correct when she challenged the conventional wisdom that the race was between Topp and Mulcair. She said that Mulcair has no greater claim to being a frontrunner than do Nash or Dewar - and i agree.
Neither does Topp.
Thu, 2011-12-01 23:36
#104
YOu may be right about that too - who the hell really knows who is a "frontrunner" at this stage. We have nothing to compare this race to...there has never been an OMOV NDP leadership race before where there were so many serious candidates and where the stakes were so high.
Thu, 2011-12-01 23:38
#105
Given that Topp is not running in Danforth, I have to assume that he has a "plan B" to get a seat very quickly. Still it is one more complication that the party would not have to face with any other person as leader (other than Martin Singh)
I'm sure he has a plan but it comes to who do you ask to resign their seat and if that seat is winnable. While the NDP is still pulling strong numbers in Quebec it can still be a risk to ask someone there to resign their seat and allow him to run. With the election so far away it's not like you can ask a higher profile MP in a safe NDP seat to just leave. We've seen this come up before with Jean Chretien and Joe Clark but they ran in seats they weren't planning on running in again and the elections were expected to be called a lot sooner then we know our next one will be.
Thu, 2011-12-01 23:40
#106
BTW: On another note can i just point out what a wonderful person Sudbury NDP MP Glenn Thibeault is!
http://www.xtra.ca/public/Ottawa/An_MP_remembers_a_brother_lost_to_AIDS-...
Thanks for that, Stock.
Thu, 2011-12-01 23:56
#107
Given that Topp is not running in Danforth, I have to assume that he has a "plan B" to get a seat very quickly. Still it is one more complication that the party would not have to face with any other person as leader (other than Martin Singh)
I'm sure he has a plan but it comes to who do you ask to resign their seat and if that seat is winnable. While the NDP is still pulling strong numbers in Quebec it can still be a risk to ask someone there to resign their seat and allow him to run. With the election so far away it's not like you can ask a higher profile MP in a safe NDP seat to just leave. We've seen this come up before with Jean Chretien and Joe Clark but they ran in seats they weren't planning on running in again and the elections were expected to be called a lot sooner then we know our next one will be.
I think this is a bit too overwrought. If Brian Topp (or Martin Singh for that matter) wins the leadership after a seven-month race and runs in a by-election, people will have the choice to elect a party leader who may be the next Prime Minister. That should carry a little bit of pride. I don't think there have been too many times when the newly-elected leader of a party has been denied a by-election seat (I can't think of one, anyway).
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:01
#108
I don't think there have been too many times when the newly-elected leader of a party has been denied a by-election seat (I can't think of one, anyway).
Aug. 26, 2006, Elizabeth May was elected leader of the Green Party. Nov. 27, 2006, she finished second in the London North Centre byelection.
Now off I go to find some more...
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:04
#109
I don't think there have been too many times when the newly-elected leader of a party has been denied a by-election seat (I can't think of one, anyway).Aug. 26, 2006, Elizabeth May was elected leader of the Green Party. Nov. 27, 2006, she finished second in the London North Centre byelection.
Now off I go to find some more...
What about John Tory?
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:07
#110
A better example would be when Arthur Meighen tried to make a political comeback and became Tory leader in 1941 and a Tory backbencher dutifully in then then super-safe Tory seat of York South resigned to force a byelection. The Liberals were chivalrous and ran no candidate - but behind the scenes they helped the CCF candidate a school principal Joe Noseworthy. In a stunning upset, Noseworthy won the byelection, Meighen was humiliated and immediately quit as Tory leader and was never heard from again.
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:09
#111
Elizabeth May and John Tory are not particularly good examples. May was leader of a fifth party that had never won a seat running in a Liberal held riding. Tory had lost his seat in the general election and was trying to get back into the leg. it was a very different situation from a triumphant newly chosen leader with no seat running in a byelection.
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:14
#112
YOu may be right about that too - who the hell really knows who is a "frontrunner" at this stage. We have nothing to compare this race to...there has never been an OMOV NDP leadership race before where there were so many serious candidates and where the stakes were so high.
As a Mulcair supporter, I don't think he's the frontrunner although he has far more support outside Quebec than suggested which we heard again from Hebert tonight.
Also, I think that Dewar and Nash could win this thing. I still have doubts that Topp can. I'm just not seeing the rank and file support out there for him. May change. And that's just not my analysis... had a well respected undeclared MP tell me the same.
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:15
#113
I don't think there have been too many times when the newly-elected leader of a party has been denied a by-election seat (I can't think of one, anyway).Aug. 26, 2006, Elizabeth May was elected leader of the Green Party. Nov. 27, 2006, she finished second in the London North Centre byelection.
Now off I go to find some more...
What about John Tory?
Christy Clark sure was premier and just squeaked out a win in Gordon Campbell's old seat.
Where does Topp live?
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:18
#114
My favourite example (not relevant) is Robert Bourassa, who regained the Liberal leadership in 1983, won a byelection, regained the premiership in the 1985 election - but lost his own seat - and won a byelection in a different riding in 1986.
Ah, nostalgia, when will it end?
[edited until I hopefully got it right - the memory banks aren't what they used to be - I think]
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:19
#115
Didn't Clyde Wells fail to win his seat when the NFLD Liberals won government?
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:22
#116
Christy Clark sure was premier and just squeaked out a win in Gordon Campbell's old seat.
Where does Topp live?
Yes but Christy was also taking over the leadership of an extremely unpopular discredited third term incumbent government.
Topp lives in Toronto and his MP is Peggy Nash - somehow I doubt she of all people would give any consideration to giving up her seat for him. I'll bet Topp has some sort of deal with a Quebec MP from the Montreal to Ottawa area who won by a big margin and doesn't really want to be an MP.
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:23
#117
One thing you should not do, however, is allow Liberals and Conservatives to define who is a "nobody" now. Last Christmas Rex Murphy named Jack Layton the most overrated politicians of the year. Layton got the last laugh on him four months later.
This is along the same lines as what I was thinking. Dion and Iggy both did poorly because they let the Conservatives define them, before they could define themselves. On of the advantages I used to think the NDP would have going into the 2015 federal election was that the Conservatives wouldn't be able to do the to Layton because he was already well defined in the minds of Canadians. Now of course that isn't the case, so it might be helpful to think how the Conservatives would try to attack each of the potential leaders.
Some that come to mind...
Brian Topp- "Tax Raising Topp". Or, "too close to the unions".
Peggy Nash- Like Topp when it comes to unions.
Thomas Mulcair- Sympathetic to sepratists? Doesn't have the right temperament to be Prime Minister? (the "anger" thing always seems to get mentioned when his name comes up in main stream media)
Niki Ashton- Flip-flop on the gun registry. That, or maybe too young and radical?
Nathan Cullen- Trying to "rig" election results?
Martin Singh- No experience?
Paul Dewar- Not sure how they could attack Dewar. Maybe "too nice", though put a different way.
Romeo Saganash- Again, I'm not sure, though I wonder if they might hold back on him out of fear of seeming racist, like the PCs in Ontario did when they used "foreign workers" in some of their Ads that may have cost them the election.
Those are just some ideas I had. I'm not saying any of them a true, just that's how the Conservatives might attack them.feel free to comment on them and elaborate, or come up with your own. 
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:25
#118
Didn't Clyde Wells fail to win his seat when the NFLD Liberals won government?
Yes - but that was after first winning a byelection after being elected leader. Five points for effort.
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:35
#119
I just thought of another example of a newly elected opposition party leader failing to win a seat in a byelection. In 1980 Grant Devine won the leader of the Saskatchewan PC Party and he had no seat. The MLA for what was seen to be a safe Tory seat - Estevan - resigned so Devine could run in a byelection and get into the leg. Devine lost by an extremely narrow margin to the NDP! However, he persevered and in 1982 Devine led the PCs to massive landslide win - and easily won in Estevan!
Fri, 2011-12-02 00:46
#120
Didn't Clyde Wells fail to win his seat when the NFLD Liberals won government?
Yes
Christy Clark sure was premier and just squeaked out a win in Gordon Campbell's old seat.
Where does Topp live?
Yes but Christy was also taking over the leadership of an extremely unpopular discredited third term incumbent government.
Topp lives in Toronto and his MP is Peggy Nash - somehow I doubt she of all people would give any consideration to giving up her seat for him. I'll bet Topp has some sort of deal with a Quebec MP from the Montreal to Ottawa area who won by a big margin and doesn't really want to be an MP.
The BC Liberals saw a bounce after her election as leader, and still she was the premier running in the former premier's seat.
If Topp does decide to go for a seat in Montreal it will be a bold risk especially if the other parties don't back off, which they often do.
Fri, 2011-12-02 01:25
#121
Malcolm
I just thought of another example of a newly elected opposition party leader failing to win a seat in a byelection. In 1980 Grant Devine won the leader of the Saskatchewan PC Party and he had no seat. The MLA for what was seen to be a safe Tory seat - Estevan - resigned so Devine could run in a byelection and get into the leg. Devine lost by an extremely narrow margin to the NDP! However, he persevered and in 1982 Devine led the PCs to massive landslide win - and easily won in Estevan!
Indeed, Stock - and it was the best favour the NDP ever did for Grant Devine. Instead of being trapped in the fantasy world of the provincial legislature, Devine spent the next two years travelling the province and getting his face on the front page of every weekly in the province.
As an aside, the NDP campaign manager in the 1980 Estevan byelection was a young MLA from Shaunavon named Dwain Lingenfelter - who earned himself a seat in Cabinet. The winner of the byelection, Jack "The Giant Killer" Chapman passed away a couple of months ago.
I remember riding back to Regina after pulling vote on eday with Neil Byers (the first person to be elected to the Saskatchewan Legislature as a New Democrat in a 1969 byelection). We ended up helping some drunken Tories who were stranded by the roadside.
Fri, 2011-12-02 04:54
#122
There will be a debate on Dec 4 and Im sure we'll hear about policies there. Especially from those who havn't released much.
I will remember to point out that expectation that is widely held here.
Fri, 2011-12-02 05:24
#123
YOu may be right about that too - who the hell really knows who is a "frontrunner" at this stage. We have nothing to compare this race to...there has never been an OMOV NDP leadership race before where there were so many serious candidates and where the stakes were so high.
As a Mulcair supporter, I don't think he's the frontrunner although he has far more support outside Quebec than suggested which we heard again from Hebert tonight.
Also, I think that Dewar and Nash could win this thing. I still have doubts that Topp can. I'm just not seeing the rank and file support out there for him. May change. And that's just not my analysis... had a well respected undeclared MP tell me the same.
Then there's Debater: "What's over the top? The mainstream media have pretty much said they can't stand Mulcair. Have you seen the things they have said about him? He is one of their pet hates. Coyne himself said tonight on 'At Issue' that even the people in the NDP don't like him."
So, our Liberal in babbleland quotes Coyne (whom we here all love), and the "mainstream media" (to which we are all very attached here) as saying they "can't stand Mulcair."
Now if one analyzed this predilection on the part of the Right for their "dislike" of Mulcair - or even gave it passing, foggy thought - one might arrive at the idea that he is their bete noir (how's that for an attempt), the New Democrat they don't want to face in the next election.
But no, babble wanders off down memory lane into the land of nod, even as job losses mount in eastern manufacturing. No concept of the economic arguments that will be required to win the support of the average Canadian threatened with job loss and poverty in the face of Conservative dominance over that area of concern. How very, very social democratish and irrelevant.
Fri, 2011-12-02 05:54
#124
So Debater is representative of Babble now? And representative of social democrats?
Fri, 2011-12-02 06:20
#125
quote: "So, our Liberal in babbleland quotes ...
Your ability to distort, Ken, would give you a leg up on membership of the Conseervative propaganda team. They are even worse at missing/omitting things... Have your morning coffee. :)
Fri, 2011-12-02 07:13
#126
And missing your pont is distortion now?
[And I'm still not sure what it is. Sure I get the part about Debater, and the last paragraph you've made us familiar with the uh, concept, there. It is attempting to make a connection that lost and loses me.]
I'd like to hear a report from someone who has met the famous George.... I've always been curious whether it is possible that such an incredibly grumpy and nasty person on-line might just be a regular guy in person.
Fri, 2011-12-02 08:09
#127
So I comment on the state of the babble nation...you reply saying "So Debater is representative of Babble now? And representative of social democrats?" ....I reply to you saying that you have grossly distorted what I said, and show where you conveniently missed my quote of Debater...and now I'm "an incredibly grumpy and nasty person on-line might just be a regular guy in person."
Is it just possible that you always lead with your chin, Ken?
ANd now comes Catchfire saying that babble really isn't interested in my involvement in internecine warfare, closing down the thread before I can point out that, again, I did not start the personal shit.
Fri, 2011-12-02 08:16
#128
There will be a debate on Dec 4 and Im sure we'll hear about policies there. Especially from those who havn't released much.
I will remember to point out that expectation that is widely held here.
Whereas Kenneth is above reproach in posts like the one previous to mine .
Je me souvyens encore. (Sorry, that's the closest I can come before checking it out on google translate. Be right back.
Fri, 2011-12-02 08:17
#129
Closing for length.
Pages
- « first
- ‹ previous
- 1
- 2
- 3