NDP Leadership Convention 2017

[DC Al Fine]

People should stop wasting time suggesting public intellectuals with zero political experience as leadership material. It's simply not going to happen.

Exactly.

They are totally different jobs, full stop. Plus, spending your adult life pushing a set of ideas virtually guarantees that you've created some attack ad material for yourself. The only Dipper who should want Naomi Klein as leader is Audrey McLaughlin wanting to lose the 'worst result ever' record.

[DC Al Fine]

I kind of wish Mulcair would run. We haven't had that kind of leadership convention in a long time and I think it would be entertaining.

[DC Al Fine]

If Megan Leslie is out, than perhaps Yvon Godin as an Atlantic candidate?

Dexter would be a disaster. He is the Bob Rae of Nova Scotia.

Maybe, but he retired last year so I doubt he'd come back. Stoffer has already said no, Harris or Chisholm?, maybe. I think the problem with Harris and Chisholm is their lack of French, Chisholm admitted it last time and bowed out.

Megan Leslie has just announced she's not running.

[DC Al Fine]

When you are an opposition politician and the government of the day brings in a policy that is wildly unpopular in the riding you represent - but where you and your party are actually supportive of the substance of that policy - then the logical thing to do it is to attack the government for incompetently managing the issue and failing to bring stakeholders onside etc...

Do you seriously think an NDP government would have done it in a more "consultative" manner?

That's not relevant to the issue though. As DL says, if the government gives you an opening as an opposition pol, you take it, regardless of what you may or may not do in government.

[DC Al Fine]

Which opposition party is in a biggest crisis, the NDP or the Conservatives?

My guess is the NDP supporters here will say it's the Conservatives and the Conservative supporters will say it's the NDP.

[DC Al Fine]

One could imagine anyone in the Quebec caucus could switch, I suppose. Maybe Linda Duncan, considering she's in Alberta?

With Rachel Notley in provincial power, I doubt Duncan's going anywhere.

Well, the entire Alberta NDP would disaffiliate and change their name.

Hmm, I wonder what they would call themselves. Pro-Oil Social Democratic Party doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

[DC Al Fine]

What are Ashton's chances of actually winning?

She is a very weak candidate...even if someone from the left of the party were to win - it would not be her. BTW: I have yet to hear anything from her on Leap - and keep in mind that she is from a mining and forestry based riding in northern Manitoba and she is against gun control

I don't recall her voting to kill the gun registry?

[DC Al Fine]

Is there anyone that isn't fully pro-abortion, or anyone who will allow pro-life or at the least anti-abortion positions on morality, to run. I doubt it.

I believe you're looking for the Conservative leadership thread.

Yuhh, at least in other countries an anti-abortion stand is at least somewhat tolerated, or allow a moral vote on the issue, sometimes.

The Liberals only recently decided to be 100% pro-choice, but the NDP has been, to paraphrase BRTD 'all pro choice, all the time' for a long time.

Part of this stems from the history of the party. Labour parties in a lot of countries had a Catholic worker element, so there was usually room for a small pro-life wing. The main religious influence on the NDP has always been social gospel Protestants, which as you know, aren't the most pro-life lot.

[DC Al Fine]

Where is Singh on the NDP spectrum?

[DC Al Fine]

I'm not a big fan of Post Media Columnist Michael den Tandt, but he theories that post Trump rational voters will seek out un-charismatic,  hard working and knowledgeable politicians, so, if den Tandt is correct, this could be a good time for Peter Julian.

Conservatives love this type, but promiscuous progressives need a pretty boy they can take selfies with.

The more I think about this, the more I'm convinced you're right.  We Tories are never fully comfortable unless our leader resembles a small town Chartered Accountant.

[DC Al Fine]

This is wise. Assuming Hatman still identifies as  United, we're still technically members of the same religion... which makes it useless for demographics and projections

[DC Al Fine]

United Church congregations... what is left of them tend to be conservative leaning, yes. I mean, these are the people that still attend church regularly... in 2016. The leadership however is still very progressive, and still preach progressive values. The minister at my church is definitely an NDP supporter, and always preaches the social gospel at church, which is why I never feel alienated at church. Wonder what is going on in the heads of the old people when he does that.

There's two explanations I've heard for what you are describing. I suspect its a bit of both.

1) The history behind the United Church means that very few conservatives joined the denomination when it formed. The old people are certainly conservative to your typical twenty-something "None"'s perception, they aren't that conservative in the church world at large.

2) There's a huge amount of inertia, and a lot of people need a pretty stiff kick in the butt to get them to leave their church.

e.g. When I was working on a Tory campaign a few years ago, I canvassed with a guy who was an Elder at a local United Church. This guy was typical of the small c conservative, church going old person you described. He mentioned that one of the other Elders resigned and left the church when they decided to hire a female minister. The United Church has had female ministers for over 50 years

Earl, how explicit was this minister in Ottawa about the social gospel?

[DC Al Fine]

Well, he talks about climate change, and helping the disadvantaged and all that (our church does a lot of charity work in the community, as it's smack-dab in the middle of the city's urban core). About what you'd expect. It's been a while since I've gone, so I can't recall anything specific, but I do remember him saying things that I agreed with, but I thought would be cringe-worthy for even a Red Tory.

Oh, that's not too exceptional. The Social Gospel can advocate for reform because Jesus is the Son of God, or it can advocate social reform as an alternative to worshiping Jesus Christ because he he was just a human, didn't exist etc.

In my experience, ministers can get away with a lot as long as they don't explicitly state the latter formula.

[DC Al Fine]

Yes but will quebecers warm to Charlie Angus if his French is not good at all? I hear very mixed accounts of his French but what little I've heard is on a par with Lisa Raitt which is awful

A lot depends on whether he has the tacit support of current Quebec-caucussers like Boulerice, Caron, or his immediate neighbours Saganash and Moore--they can carry a lot of the linguistic weight on Charlie's behalf.  But let us also consider that the fluke laughing-gas circumstances of 2011 might have *over*-elevated NDP expectations of Quebec.  That is, maybe it's better to henceforth consider a 50-member Quebec contingent as more of a "nice-to-have" than a "must-have", and make up for that in the ROC--but at the same time not to blithely throw away whatever caucus the NDP has remaining in Quebec (half of which won by less than a third of the vote, anyway; so they're like twice-in-a-row "accidents", first through the Orange Crush, and then through FPTP favourable vote splits).  Which is why, at the very least, keeping the Carons and Boulerices on-side is critical...

That bit is important. The NDP beat the Liberals by <5% in over half of their Quebec wins in 2015.  The rejection of a unilingual leader wouldn't even have to be that big and they would still lose most of their Quebec caucus.

[DC Al Fine]

I was told at the time that the vile Antonin Scalia died that I should reserve countering the bullsh**t eulogies along the lines of 'what a wonderful person he was' and 'what a brilliant legal mind who had a clear judging philosophy' out of respect for his family because everybody knows that eulogies aren't meant to be taken all that seriously and that the real debate on his legacy could commence after a sufficient period of time had past.

Then, not two months after the POS died, George Mason University named their law school in his honor and pointed to the eulogies as one of their main reasons for giving him this honor.

At least I still get to enjoy that Scalia will rot in Hell for all eternity where he belongs.  I hope he is suffering as much as he truly deserves to.

Oh, and for any conservatives unhappy with the above, look at what you yourselves said about Castro at the time of his death and spare me your phony moral superiority.

I've got some tropical property in Winnipeg to sell Adam if he really thinks freaking eulogies are a big reason why George Mason named their law school after Scalia.

[DC Al Fine]

Jagmeet would be a huge gamble, but a necessary one with Trudeau sucking up the 'cool progressive' vote.

Is Jagmeet flawless and beautiful enough to take on Trudeau though?

[DC Al Fine]

To me Leap is just a platudinous statement of principles most of which are just sentiments, e,g, we must do more for poor people and First Nations and we need in invest more in renewable energy etc.) we can debate whether it's good politics or not but I don't see how the economy of Timmins lives or dies based on some vague motherhood sentiments - most of which the federal Liberal government has already implicitly agreed to by signing the Paris agreement

It's not hard to connect the dots from platitudes to policies though. Leap's platitudes are anti-resource extraction, so it follows that it's supporters policies would be too if they ever formed government. If one's livelihood depends on resource extraction, one can hardly be blamed for opposing Leap.

[DC Al Fine]

To me Leap is just a platudinous statement of principles most of which are just sentiments, e,g, we must do more for poor people and First Nations and we need in invest more in renewable energy etc.) we can debate whether it's good politics or not but I don't see how the economy of Timmins lives or dies based on some vague motherhood sentiments - most of which the federal Liberal government has already implicitly agreed to by signing the Paris agreement

It's not hard to connect the dots from platitudes to policies though. Leap's platitudes are anti-resource extraction, so it follows that it's supporters policies would be too if they ever formed government. If one's livelihood depends on resource extraction, one can hardly be blamed for opposing Leap.

If you take that view than shouldn't anyone working in resource extraction also reject the Paris Agretany Canadian government policies that commit to major bugs in GHG emissions? If we actually wanted to meet our commitments we would pretty much have to bring in Leap style policies!

DL I think you are making a rookie mistake for political nerds like us; assuming that politics is logical, and that the average party member (much less average Joe) follows politics as much as us.

What % of Charlie Angus's EDA do you think:
a) Knows what policies are required to make the Paris agreement work?
b) Is even aware of the Paris agreement?

I'd wager next to no one for a, and not very many for b.  It's far easier to make a snap judgment on Leap.

[DC Al Fine]

Niki Ashton is pregnant; due in November. She'll definitely be 'showing' come vote time. I've never heard of a candidate being pregnant in this kind of a high profile election. This will probably help her, right?

I imagine it might be seen as possibly distracting to her duties should she become leader, not spending time rebuilding the NDP. Nobody will say that openly though, I'm sure. She's not going to be in the top 2 anyway.

She will very likely be in the top 3; she is popular among younger supporters and as the only woman in the race, will get a bump from that as well (pun intended).

There is the possibility of underground gossip of course, because according to Wikipedia, she just got divorced a few months ago. I'm glad I haven't seen any yet; everyone is being quite respectful.

That is a rather odd situation, but I'm sure people will be respectful of it. Perhaps if she was in contention to win, more ugliness would come out, but still.

Gossip aside, how would she lead a political party during the latter stages of pregnancy and post partum? Childbirth isn't exactly day surgery, especially at her age.

[DC Al Fine]

Niki Ashton is pregnant; due in November. She'll definitely be 'showing' come vote time. I've never heard of a candidate being pregnant in this kind of a high profile election. This will probably help her, right?

I imagine it might be seen as possibly distracting to her duties should she become leader, not spending time rebuilding the NDP. Nobody will say that openly though, I'm sure. She's not going to be in the top 2 anyway.

She will very likely be in the top 3; she is popular among younger supporters and as the only woman in the race, will get a bump from that as well (pun intended).

There is the possibility of underground gossip of course, because according to Wikipedia, she just got divorced a few months ago. I'm glad I haven't seen any yet; everyone is being quite respectful.

That is a rather odd situation, but I'm sure people will be respectful of it. Perhaps if she was in contention to win, more ugliness would come out, but still.

Gossip aside, how would she lead a political party during the latter stages of pregnancy and post partum? Childbirth isn't exactly day surgery, especially at her age.

What? She's not that old.

Any criticisms along those lines, DC, would fuel a feminist backlash, which would be a great narrative for someone like Ashton, so no one running against her in the NDP is going to even bring up the subject.

It will mean some adjustments in her campaign, but she has the best excuse in the world, because no one will fault her for it.

I'm asking from a logistics point of view not an electioneering point of view.

My wife is 22 and had a healthy pregnancy/delivery. She had to take medical leave from work the last several weeks of pregnancy due to being on her feet all the time, and she couldn't go back to work for several weeks even if she wanted to. Ashton is 34 and any pregnancy at 35 plus is automatically considered high risk. She would also be working an extremely demanding job for anyone, much less a pregnant/postpartum woman.

Surely she would have to take a leave of absence from being leader at some point.

[DC Al Fine]

oh, wow. I'm sure if Jagmeet is elected leader, and people get to know him, the numbers will go up. I have trouble believing more than 1/3 of NDP voters wouldn't vote for a Sikh. Maybe most of them are in Quebec?

It's too bad that poll didn't include results for the Bloc, or by province, that would have been useful to figure that out. That said, I think Quebec is the obviously a big part of that followed by ridings with a larger blue collar working class type vote.

As an aside, I wonder if Singh's election could create a "reverse Howarth" trend at the federal level. A lot of promiscuous progressives might be:

a) Think Justin Trudeau is insufficiently progressive, reformist etc.
b) Want to vote for a racial and religious minority Prime Minister

You could see the NDP underperform in Northern Ontario, Windsor and Hamilton, while overperforming in Vancouver and Toronto. Is that realistic or am I completely out to lunch?

[DC Al Fine]

And it's hardly just Conservatives who think so:

According to the poll, the minority NDP supporters are least willing to vote for is... Evangelicals

[DC Al Fine]

Singh is the only one I can see taking seats off the Liberals. That's enough for him to get my support.

And ironically, Angus is the only one I can see taking seats off the *Conservatives*.

I'd be more worried about the Liberals if I were an NDP supporter. Trudeau is really popular among promiscuous progressives. That's annoying for a Tory, but horrifying for a Dipper.

[DC Al Fine]

TBF, Layton did the same thing.

He was chosen only a year before the election whereas Singh would be 2 years and Layton was frequently mocked for not running for a seat.

Also Layton had a caucus of like 12 only one or two of which could reasonably be called safe, and would have had to face the Martin juggernaut. The 2017 NDP situation isn't comparable to Layton's predicament.

[DC Al Fine]

Caron and Ashton's support of Bill 62 is disgusting. If either of them win the election, I'm not sure I can continue to support the NDP. I found Mulcair's unwavering support of the niqab even when it was a losing political issue in Quebec admirable.

I don't want to be in a party that would be fine with a province actively going after a religious and ethnic minority. It's a shame, because I really thought Niki Ashton was more principled than that. Before the whole bill 62 debacle, my ballot was the following.

1. Singh
2. Ashton
3. Angus
4. Caron

Now, it's just Singh and then Angus. If either Caron or Ashton wins (especially Caron, who's been most supportive of the bill), then I'll have to reconsider my allegiance to the party. At least Trudeau's always been opposed to Quebec's increasingly zealous racism masked as "secularism".

I would say it's Singh and Angus inability to understand Quebec isn't English Canada that's disgusting.

What's there not to get? There's no magic 'it's ok to discriminate" card that Quebec gets to play because it's special.