NDP Leadreship SIXTY

We had a leadership race in BC recently, and IIRC the difference between Dix and Farnworth on the final ballot is 3.6%.

I think the Libby Davies incident will end up costing Mulcair at least that much support.

Everything you say though KenS is by insinuation and negative implication.  The way you speak is all subtext without actually making your final point.

Does anyone know what the Steelworkers are doing for their sign-up drive in January? When they act, they act together.

Quote:

Our goal is to double our union's NDP members and make Steelworkers the largest union within the NDP.

http://www.usw.ca/community/political/issues?id=0020

With more than 225,000 Steel members in Canada, how many are already NDP members? Maybe 25,000? If they sign up another 25,000 as new party members, that could be critical.

http://www.usw.ca/admin/community/political-issues/files/MembershipForm_...

The story of the next two months will be the sign-up drives. At this point in 2002-3 I was getting ready to put an ad in our local daily telling people how to vote for Jack Layton. I'd love to see reports of sign-up drives here. If I don't see them, it will tell me they are being run under the surface.

A modest prediction: sometime in the next few weeks, someone such as a candidate at a debate is going to say "wouldn't it be awesome if Olivia would agree to become a deputy leader?" And all the candidates will say "yes, awesome." And that will be unanimous.

JeffWells wrote:

Myself, as the campaign's progressed, I've unexpectedly become more comfortable with the idea of almost any credible candidate as leader. . . Overall, though, I'm upbeat at the end of an awfully mixed year, and I think the race is proving a credit to the depth of talent in the party.

What he said.

My New Year's Resolution: for the next two and a half months I will say nothing negative about any candidate. If I have time, I will post a score card after each of these leadersip threads, giving a point for each favourable mention of a candidate, and substracting a point from the candidate of anyone making negative mentions of any other candidate.

As for women supporters of Mulcair: Marie-Claude Morin, MP for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot and shadow cabinet critic for Housing (Human Resources and Skills Development); Claire Trevena, BC MLA for North Island; Manon Perreault, MP for Montcalm, shadow cabinet critic for Persons with Disabilities (Human Resources and Skills Development); Heather Harrison, Policy Studies Chair at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Vice-President of the British Columbia New Democratic Party; Paulina Ayala, MP for Honoré-Mercier and shadow cabinet critic for Americas and Consular Affairs (Minister of State); Jean Graham, Director of Communications at Newfoundland & Labrador NDP Caucus and provincial executive member; Anne-Marie Day, MP for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles and past federal party policy committee co-chair; Hélène LeBlanc, MP for LaSalle—Émard and shadow cabinet critic for Science and Technology (Minister of State); Alexandrine Latendresse, MP for Louis-Saint-Laurent; Sadia Groguhé, Saint-Lambert; Djaouida Sellah, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert; Annick Papillon, Québec; Sana Hassainia, Verchères—Les Patriotes; Lise St-Denis, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, Ève Péclet, La Pointe-de-l'Île.

ottawaobserver wrote:

Not a hatchet. An observation -- and it was you who used the M word. I was curious if anyone had a different impression, or different information.

Wilf's come up with two names of women endorsers outside the newly-elected members of the Quebec caucus, besides Claire Trevena.

Well, OO, you did preface your remarks with "Well, at the risk of throwing a monkey wrench into things ... I'm going to come right out and say it" and then proceded to remark that Mulcair did not seem to have "hardly any" female supporters.

I'm sure you can understand that I thought you were hinting at something, so I just came out and said what I thought you were hinting at.

I am sorry I misunderstood you. :)

In any case, I think other posters have found enough female supporters to allay anyone's concerns.

Edited to add:

Why don't the women MPs from Québec count as women endorsements?  A lot of our women MPs seem to be very well-educated and capable people.  I'm sure they too can show wisdom in their judgment.

In any case the only leadership contestants so far to have ANY support amongst female MPs outside Québec are Brian Topp and Peggy Nash.

theleftyinvestor wrote:

Malcolm wrote:

I'll go easy on you and simply write you aff as hopelessly naive on this point.

There is no way on God's green earth to build up the necessary political support for any Senate reform apart from abolition - and even abolition will take some doing.

Not to mention that the creation of a second chamber with democratic legitimacy is arecipe for the sort of legislative gridlock that effectively prevents the development of humane social policy in the UNited States.

A reformed Senate is at least even odds to be worse than the present monstrocity.  Fortunately, a better Senate is nigh on impossible.

Abolition will come.

The USA isn't the only example of an upper house. Australia has an STV-elected Senate and from what I hear it's highly functional. The STV system most recently allowed their Greens (who are genuiniely on the left compared to ours) to hold somewhat of a balance of power. Had we a similar STV Senate, the upper house would have likely been an enabler of humane social policy over the past 10 years (to whatever extent that non-Conservatives can agree upon). And perhaps capable of blocking Conservative excess in the face of a "majority" in the lower house.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  And if we could put wheels on the Senate Chamber, we could call it a bus.

The supporters of the various manifestations of Senate reform will not support any version of Senate reform but their own.  Getting them lined up behind one sort of Senate reform is simply not.  The ONLY approach to reform that has any viable possibility of success is abolition - and even that's a bit of a long shot.

After the fall of Napoleon III, the French had a constitutional convention where monarchists were the vast majority - about 2/3.  But the Legitimists were not prepared to compromise with the Orleanists (even though the Orleanists were prepared to compromise with the Legitimists), while neither party were prepared to compromise with the Bonapartistes nor the Bonapartistes with either of them.  Thus, despite the overwhelming monarchist majority, France ended up with the Third Republic.  That. ultimately, will be the fate of any Senate reform proposal apart from abolition.

I had a long conversation the other night with a female friend of mine who is an organizer for Peggy. She did not convince me; I am leaning ever more strongly toward Mulcair, but I was happy to hear her thoughts. Her arguments did not hinge on Peggy being able to win over women any better than Tom, but rather on her perception that Peggy is right (left?) on the issues ("she's been living her philosophy her whole life", etc) and that Peggy will better appeal to the younger vote that the NDP also has to win.

She did mention that she notices a lot of Peggy's people (at least in BC) are young (a lot of young gay men especially) with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. My parents' view of things from Toronto is that Tom's people also tend to be skewed very much toward the younger side of things.

The only thing I can offer by comparison is that Brian Topp's event here in Winnipeg seemed to be skewed toward a much older set (but then NDP Open Houses usually tend to be). :)

AnonymousMouse wrote:

By my count, once you exclude the MPs who aren't endorsing anyone and the MPs who are running, there are about 30-35 left. In other words, it is nearly mathematically impossible for any candidate other than Brian Topp to get more MP endorsements than Mulcair and any candidate (including Topp) would need to get almost all the remaining MPs to do so.

Let's count. I read somewhere that Peter Stoffer has declared himself neutral, as have Olivia and the caucus officers, I assume: Caron (Quebec caucus chair), Charlton (Whip),
Comartin (House Leader), Julian (caucus chair and caucus rep on federal party executive), and Turmel. Any others, such as Laverdiere (Deputy House Leader)? If not, I count 34 available, including Chisholm.

Caucus officers stayed neutral until convention, if I recall 1989 correctly. Most of them took positions by the time they got there, though, except for the convention co-chairs (one of whom had been unavoidable detained, to recall a different piece of trivia).

Malcolm wrote:

Nicky made an observation about the skinnydipper poll at the end of the previous thread.

While I agree with Ottawa Observer that we can't make too much out of a self-selecting poll where people can vote multiple times, I do observe a couple of interesting things.

Given that the instrument is an aggregate of every visit since it opened, it's pretty clear that Mulcair has the most of whatever momentum there is.  Early days, Nathan Cullen tended to win, but Nathan has now fallen to fifth, behind Niki Ashton.  A couple of weeks ago, the final ballot tended to be a Nash Dewar showdown.  So I suspect that Cullen and Dewar, and possibly Nash, are holding up in part because of the early results (though I see that Cullen has had a slight net gain on Ashton in the last couple of days).

It would be interesting (though probably of limited analytical value) to see a breakdown of each candidate's support on that poll in terms of when votes were cast.

I have been watching the "poll" (survey?) over the last couple of weeks, and I was rather surprised that it seemed to echo what I was thinking with respect to where the race was going (which incidentally is not all that different than your take on it, Malcolm).  I think it's probably going to be a Nash/Mulcair final ballot, with Topp and Dewar underperforming and Niki showing a surprising amount of strength.

What I also find interesting is looking at each round and seeing where the support goes.  What I notice is that Peggy and Tom both seem to gain about the same number from candidates that are dropped until Nathan drops off - the split there is about 3:2 for Peggy.  Same with Niki's supporters (6:5 in favour of Peggy) and Paul's (6:5 for Peggy).

I've got to sit down with a spreadsheet to crunch some numbers, but it seems to me that if this pattern is at all representative, Mulcair is going to have to very well on the first ballot to even have the possibility of winning.

Last time I looked at that poll, the highest proportion of Dewar supporters had "none of these" as their second choice, but perhaps things have changed.

ETA: I just realized that means their second choice had already fallen off the ballot by that point, so perhaps Saganash or Cullen or Ashton, or Brian for that matter.

Winston wrote:

She did mention that she notices a lot of Peggy's people (at least in BC) are young (a lot of young gay men especially) with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. My parents' view of things from Toronto is that Tom's people also tend to be skewed very much toward the younger side of things.

Whereas Brian Topp's grassroots supporters seem to be skewed very much towards the fictional ;-)

ottawaobserver wrote:

That's interesting about Tom's Toronto support skewing younger. You couldn't miss the young, downtown Vancouver set supporting Peggy Nash at the Vancouver convention, that's for sure (and I was just following on Twitter!). The comment before that a lot of Mulcair's supporters at the one Vancouver event were lawyers is consistent with what I've heard elsewhere.

I think that if Peggy manages to win, the downtown Vancouver set will be particularly energized to find someone to finally finish off Hedy Fry for good.

ottawaobserver wrote:

we all assume Niki Ashton's supporters are young (or young at heart as with Malcolm and Wilf).

Or young at heart such as Francine Raynault, MP for Joliette, born in 1945, grandmother of nine grandchildren; and Bidhu Jha, MB MLA for Radisson, aged 68; and Eric Robinson, MB Deputy Premier, Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Minister, aged 58; and Drew Caldwell, MB MLA for Brandon East, age 51; and . . . Here's an idea: let's just define all Ashton fans as "young at heart."

Another thought on the DemoChoice poll: there is no way Martin Singh is that low with two street-front campaign offices in Peel Region and Newton-North Delta. Where he might go is an interesting question, though I believe one of his key workers may have Mulcair as a strong number two.

The "fictional Brian Topp supporter" meme might be cute to some people, but I think at the moment we're seeing the inevitable correction of the overselling of Topp's domination to begin with, alongside the inevitable sense of momentum from Mulcair finally having an actual campaign. Nash hasn't come under much scrutiny yet, and while Dewar had an early strong start, he hit some turbulence during the debate, but is still showing up decently on the phones, according to what the campaigns were telling David Akin.

There are three months to go yet, so we will see several more reversals yet, I dare say, and whatever percent of the caucus endorsements Wilf calculated above.

We're also heading into the part of the campaign that would be expected to be Brian's stronger suit - the policy side of things. And the end of January will also bring the fundraising totals to the end of December, which will be some kind of reality check.

Winston wrote:

...her perception that Peggy is right (left?) on the issues ("she's been living her philosophy her whole life", etc)...

This concept keeps coming up in various incarnations and it scares the heck out of me.

Every candidate in this race was an active member of the party before May 2nd.

Brian Topp has worked for unions and the NDP his entire career.

Paul Dewar has been an aid worker, a teacher and an NDP MP.

Thomas Mulcair has been a labour lawyer, a university professor, a public servant and a kick ass environment minister. He's been active in secular and religious charities, the national unity debate, language rights (on both sides) and from the video I posted above what appears to be a pretty vicious fight against the Quebec medical college over sexual misconduct against women.

I don't question the commitment of any candidate in this race to the progressive, social democratic values of the party. And there's no reason that anyone should.

So when I keep seeing people point to Peggy Nash saying that "she's been living her philosophy her whole life" or that she has a "lifetime of social and political activism", I can't possibly take that at face value. Every candidate in this race has a life story full to the brim with "social and political activism" (save perhaps Martin Singh, who I don't know enough about to say). And to the extent they've all spent their careers engaged in that work, they've all "lived [their] philosophy [their] whole life" (again, perhaps except Singh).

So why do we repeatedly see this narrative pop up with respect to Peggy Nash? Especially when many, if not all, the candidates in the race can and have told the same story?

Obviously her campaign has been promoting this some extent, but that alone surely does not explain it. Every campaign touts their candidate's experience. Usually people don't respond to the recitation of a progressive resume as if they were a unique qualification in an NDP leadership race--it never is.

I think what we're talking about isn't really a candidate who's been "living [their] philosophy [their] whole life" or who has "lifetime of social and political activism", but rather one who's gotten ahold of the secret lefty decoder ring.

As I described in an early comment, someone who is "of the movement".

Let's face facts: every single one of these candidates is more "of the movement" than 99% of Canadians. But if we pick a leader based on which candidate's public persona best exemplifies the progressive movement, then we've got our heads in the clouds and Canadians really shouldn't have trusted us with Official Opposition status.

Jack Layton was "of the movement", but he didn't spend eight years going around the country preaching the gospel to the converted. It was his job to connect with the rest of the population who weren't necessarily on board. If we pick a leader based on which candidate's public persona most embodies progressive movement politics, then we're basically picking someone on the basis that they're able to do the exact opposite of what they'll need to do to be a successful leader.

Doesn't that seem like a wee bit of a problem? And, frankly, more than a bit self-indulgent?

Harsh words I know, but I see quotes like the above and I cringe.

(To be clear, obviously not everyone supporting Nash is doing so for these reasons and people supporting other candidates may well, in fact, be doing so for the exact same reasons I attribute to Nash supporters. This is not about Nash; I've just heard this raised with respect to her candidacy in particular. I'm also not saying that being "of the movement" and connecting with those beyond the movement are "opposites" in the sense that they are mutually exclusive. As I wrote, all the candidates in this race are "of the movement" to a very great degree. I'm also not saying that being "of the movement" necessarily detracts from one's ability to reach out beyond the movement. I'm just saying they are completely different talents and that having the former is in no way an indication that you have the latter. Nor is this about left vs. centrist. It's about popular appeal and communication style. Do we want a candidate who makes us feel good about ourselves or a candidate who can win and get stuff done for people? Jack Layton was certainly "of the movement", but he didn't run for leader on the idea that he embodied it--even though that clearly could have won him some votes in the leadership race. One has to imagine that that's at least in part because he knew that wouldn't be his job if he won. That's what I'm talking about.)

KenS wrote:

AnonymousMouse wrote:

So when I keep seeing people point to Peggy Nash saying that "she's been living her philosophy her whole life" or that she has a "lifetime of social and political activism", I can't possibly take that at face value.

It's really very simple. Peggy Nash HAS spent considerably more time than any other candidate promininently engaged with social movements.

On this board, and generally among babblers social circles, that counts for a great deal.

So you are going to hear about it.

I disagree with that on a factual level.

Of course, Peggy Nash is the oldest candidate, so she's probably been engaged the longest in the technical sense, but all three candidates I mentioned above (Topp, Dewar and Mulcair) have been involved in social movements their entire careers. Romeo Saganash has a pretty long and prominent record there as well. Cullen and Ashton less so only because of their age. Mulcair has been a far more prominent public figure in these social movements for the last twenty years than Peggy Nash unless we just don't count things that happen in Quebec (again, see the video I posted above, plus unity plus language plus labour plus the environmental movement).

The difference, IMO, is not the length or prominence of Peggy Nash's involvement in social movements, it is the appearance that she was (until recently at least) always on the outside looking in (not a band council leader, senior public servant or cabinet minister) and engaged in advocacy rather then more tightly focused work (not a party staffer, aid worker or public school teacher).

In other words, the distinction doesn't seem to be experience, prominence or progressiveness, but rather just how "movementy" and "activisty" her works were. Those kinds of outside looking in, advocacy roles are important, but certainly no more valid than other forms of being "promininently engaged with social movements".

Okay, just throwing it out there.

Given the political alignment (ie where they stand within the party) of many of the Nash people I know about, is the emphasis on this "living the philosophy her whole life" and "lifetime of social and political activism" language perhaps a bit of a dog whistle aimed at:

• Thomas Mulcair (past Liberal membership in Quebec and perceived centrism)

but also against:

• Brian Topp (leading role in an NDP government that some found to have been insufficiantly left)
• Paul Dewar (close connections to a leading figure in another insufficiantly left NDP government)
• Niki Ashton and Nathan Cullen (insufficient lifetime)
• Romeo Saganash (social and political activism outside our usual networks)
• Martin Singh (a narrative that doesn't seem to talk about activism at all)

I asked several threads ago if we could get back to being positive in our statements. It seems we are drifting (no diving) back into the negative. For those who keep repeating the same negative ideas in different phrasing through innuendo and with little or no evidence, this is driving me away from considering your candidate since you are mainly providing evidence to not vote for someone, not evidence why we should support someone. This is hardly likely to lead to an enthusiastic endorsement of your candidate and much more likely to achieve the opposite. I will vote for someone based on what they offer the party and my second and third choices will be made in the same manner.

Malcolm wrote:

Okay, just throwing it out there.

Given the political alignment (ie where they stand within the party) of many of the Nash people I know about, is the emphasis on this "living the philosophy her whole life" and "lifetime of social and political activism" language perhaps a bit of a dog whistle aimed at:

• Thomas Mulcair (past Liberal membership in Quebec and perceived centrism)

but also against:

• Brian Topp (leading role in an NDP government that some found to have been insufficiantly left)
• Paul Dewar (close connections to a leading figure in another insufficiantly left NDP government)
• Niki Ashton and Nathan Cullen (insufficient lifetime)
• Romeo Saganash (social and political activism outside our usual networks)
• Martin Singh (a narrative that doesn't seem to talk about activism at all)

Mostly yes, though I don't think it's Mulcair's past Liberal associations as much as his perceived centrism and centrist strategy that is the sticking point. And I don't think it's a knock against Saganash, just maybe that he doesn't have as long a history with the party and electoral politics.

As for the rest, I think you've more or less got the feeling right, except that I don't find her folks are dog-whistling against others so much as they just feel more comfortable (on the outside) with her, and they get the feeling from her campaign that they won't have to compromise anything in order to win government.

AnonymousMouse wrote:

Winston wrote:

...her perception that Peggy is right (left?) on the issues ("she's been living her philosophy her whole life", etc)...

This concept keeps coming up in various incarnations and it scares the heck out of me.

Me too.

I agree with pretty much everything you said in your very lengthy but nevertheless succinct post.  The little tidbit that I thought most à propos was the following:

AnonymousMouse wrote:

Jack Layton was "of the movement", but he didn't spend eight years going around the country preaching the gospel to the converted. It was his job to connect with the rest of the population who weren't necessarily on board.

You hit the nail on the head with that one.  That is THE job of the leader, and I will be supporting the candidate that I think will be in the best position to sell the NDP to the public - and from what I have seen, Tom Mulcair is by far and away the best one to do that.

Don't get me wrong, I do like all of the candidates, but the leader has to be saleable to Canadians, not just us navel-gazing New Democrats.  Jack understood that, and that's what got us where we are.  We have a legacy that we can build upon or that we choose not too.

AnonymousMouse wrote:

If we pick a leader based on which candidate's public persona most embodies progressive movement politics, then we're basically picking someone on the basis that they're able to do the exact opposite of what they'll need to do to be a successful leader. Doesn't that seem like a wee bit of a problem? And, frankly, more than a bit self-indulgent?

Yes, very self-indulgent.  Doesn't mean it won't happen.

AnonymousMouse wrote:

Do we want a candidate who makes us feel good about ourselves or a candidate who can win and get stuff done for people? Jack Layton was certainly "of the movement", but he didn't run for leader on the idea that he embodied it--even though that clearly could have won him some votes in the leadership race. One has to imagine that that's at least in part because he knew that wouldn't be his job if he won. That's what I'm talking about.)

That's what gives me hope.  Sometimes we New Democrats do indeed take a risk.  In 2003, it was very much the case that Bill Blaikie embodied the history and values of "the Movement", but we still chose Jack - much to the visceral consternation of some (especially on the Prairies).  Where Jack was successful in winning the race however, was in reassuring the membership that he "was of the movement" too; that despite his flashiness they could still trust him to bear their message.

I expect that Mulcair will be working on this big-time come the new year.  If he doesn't, I think we will have to make the best of things with Peggy Nash.

Winston wrote:

Okay...so I sat down with a spreadsheet and the results from the DemoChoice poll (later found out that DemoChoice will already tabulate them for you but...)

It seems that Ottawa Observer was right: Paul Dewar's supporters (at least the ones responding to the survey) seem to be the sort to take their marbles and go home if they don't get their way - either that or his supporters are pretty savvy about how to skew these "polls".  Once he drops off, 41% of his supporters say "none of the above", as opposed to 25.3% which split to Mulcair and 33.5% to Nash.

None of the other candidates have anywhere near the "drop-out rate" - Cullen comes closest at 15.7% selecting "none" when he is dropped off.

Peggy Nash is the preferred choice of supporters of Dewar, Ashton, Cullen and narrowly, Saganash (33.5%, 34.4%, 38.5%, 24.8%), but is not the primary second choice of Topp supporters (17.9%)

Tom Mulcair only takes more support than Peggy from among the supporters of Topp (and Singh).   For Mulcair: Dewar/Ashton/Cullen/Saganash/Topp 25.4%/25.3%/23.1%/23.1%/22.2%

What is significant is that Mulcair is not winning much more than 1/5 of the support of any of the candidates when they drop off, while Peggy Nash is winning more than 1/3 fairly consistently.

If that were to repeat itself on the vote (only winning 20% of each candidate's votes as they drop off), he would need to go into the first ballot with _at least_ about 35% of the vote.

 

 

Of course, the DemoChoice poll is not at all scientific, so its overall predictive value is close to non-existent, but it COULD reasonably be a somewhat better indicator of second choices. I do find the breaddown interesting.

Once you're down to a Mulcair/Nash final ballot, 39% of the support that drops from other candidates goes to Nash and 30% to Mulcair (with 31% going to neither Nash or Mulcair).

That means the formula for what Mulcair would need on the first ballot to ultimately win is roughly M = 0.83N + 8.25. In other words, Mulcair only needs 35% on the first ballot if Nash close behind at around 32%. If Mulcair were at 30%, he'd still win as long as Nash were no higher than 26%. If Mulcair were at 25%, he'd still win as long as Nash were no higher than 20%. In the other direction, if Mulcair were at 40% he'd win even if Nash finished as high as 38%.

In other words, if the 40/30/30 split of this web poll held in reality, Mulcair would need at MOST about a 5% lead on the first ballot to win on the final ballot against Nash.

Of course, that's all according to a completely unscientific poll :), so meangingless but fun.

The other aspect is that that definition of progressive tends to be very very urban, without its proponents apparently realizing how urban it is (or else actively eschewing the legitimacy of a rural perspective).

Back to the concern about Mulcair and centrism - I don't even think it's even the centrism per se that's the sticking point. I think it's that he seems to accept the mainstream frame, promulgated through the MSM and especially CBC and the Toronto Star, about what public perceptions are of the NDP and how we need to defend against them, be afraid of them, fight against them, prove them wrong.

Other NDPers who have a centrist offering still do so by trying to create their own frame, and change the MSM frame. Layton did that brilliantly (with some help from Topp it would be unfair not to add).

The current mainstream frame, for example, is that we need a fighter and good performer in Question Period, and that will hold Stephen Harper to account. I can't think of a less important strategic priority in terms of what would help us win government. But if you want to follow the Liberals' lead - why that's the basket they put all their eggs into, and look where it got them. They got great Twitter reviews every day, and could not have been more out of touch with the voters they needed to win over.

JeffWells wrote:

Myself, as the campaign's progressed, I've unexpectedly become more comfortable with the idea of almost any credible candidate as leader. 

Me too. I can't think of any of the candidates that aren't total long shots which I'd be terrified to have win. Each has their own strengths and risks but I don't see any obvious disasters among them.