2012 NDP leadership convention

[canadian1]

Maybe I was too quick to say Mulcair wouldn't fall victim to Brison Syndrome. Not ideologically but in every other sense. We respect you, we want you where you are, we like your ideas... but we'll never elect you leader.

To be fair the Quebec Liberals are really a federalist party so I don't think you can call someone a turncoat for supporting it.  After all it has some Conservatives too.  Charest was a former PC leader and Lawrence Cannon was also a Quebec Liberal.  With no provincial NDP, what party was Mulcair suppose to support anyways?

I think his weakness is has a hot temper and I don't find him as likeable as Jack Layton.  Paul Dewar seems like a decent choice and being from Ottawa, what better to place to connect with both English Canada and Quebec when you consider he is bilingual and his riding overlooks the Ottawa River.  I don't know a lot about Nathan Cullen, but he seems like a principled decent guy.  I wonder if he will get any flack over his vote on the gun registry which he opposes.  Mind you his riding is quite rural and the population is overwhelmingly against it there.  I should add although not an NDP supporter myself, I think their policy of allowing a free vote on the gun registry is the most sensible as the divide seems more of a rural vs. urban rather than left vs. right.  The one notable exception is Quebec where the registry is popular throughout the province.

Dewar isn't bilingual; his French is very weak. That's why I think he hasn't a hope of becoming leader. If you listen to him speaking, you'll have a great deal of difficulty interpreting his French.

[canadian1]

Why would the 905 be so tricky?  Is it the memories of David Miller? 

The 905 is pure suburbia and exurbia, and as such is generally incompatible with social-democratic politics in Canada. It excludes the city of Toronto (that's area code 416). Oshawa, as mentioned, was historically the exception to this rule, but that's fading. As for Bramalea-Gore-Malton, that was a particularly strong candidate running first federally, then provincially. The region is simply too wealthy overall to be conducive to an NDP surge, barring a targeted and successful appeal by the party to Asian voters (particularly South Asian).

It isn't that the region is incapable of supporting the NDP (unlike some rural areas in Ontario), it's just that the party is starting from a weak position and has economic arguments that don't play so well to the wealthy 905.

[canadian1]

But if you're looking towards a majority, then it would be actively stupid to write off the entire area outside Bramela/whatever and Oshawa. You won't win the really affluent areas 'north' of the city, but humdrum suburbia certainly can vote for social democrats under the right circumstances.

But that's not what I was trying to address. I was explaining why the NDP in the 905 had been described as a "difficult" proposition. I never said it was impossible or that they couldn't win there with the right organization, particularly among South Asians.

As for Greater Vancouver, Earl is right that its NDP regions are considerably less wealthy than the 905 generally is. It's also important to note that, as far as I can tell, much of the NDP's strength there comes from organizational efforts over the years that have far surpassed those it's made in the 905. The point is that the 905 is particularly difficult ground in which to build a "wave" of NDP support.

North Vancouver's Liberal results in '04 and '06 can be pinned down to candidate selection. The Liberal, Don Bell, was a former mayor, while Conservative MP Ted White (in '04) and candidate Cindy Silver (in '06) alienated voters with social conservatism and indifference to the riding's large Iranian population.