Liberal Leadership
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That’s where it starts to get tricky, at least for anyone not intimately familiar with the minutiae of Liberal party rules. The maybe-sortas on the list weren’t officially listed as supporters for a particular candidate. But organizers for those candidates would - or should - have been aware of where each was likely to go, since they would have been tagged during the delegate selection process. Thus a well-organized campaign with ties to the provincial council would have been able to tweak the list in order to give “their” alternates an edge over the rest when promotion time came around.
According to the party insider who explained all this to Macleans.ca, the only well-organized team in this regard was Michael Ignatieff’s. His people made sure that those delegates leaning toward joining the Iggy Nation had a better shot at making it into the voting booth. macleans/chris shelly
As I suggested below (credentialing irregularities at Liberal Convention) this is not a big deal unless and until there is a systemic bias in favour of one candidate.
Chris suggests that the process favours the organized: well, yes. In chaos, the organized make out like bandits. The more interesting question is who set the chaos up?
In essence, by closing the door at 11:00AM the organizers of the convention chose an option which would systematically discriminate against the less organized campaigns. They had other options which they decided not to take.
Where there is a clear front runner his organization wants to get the credentialing and the voting done as quickly as possible so as to reduce the chance of delegate slippage and outright defection. Closing the doors as early as possible is part of the strategy. So is holding the voting while the candidates are speaking (and how weird is that?).
Written by jay on December 2nd, 2006 with no comments.
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From a Iggy Press Release:
Number of Delegates
Registered Percentage of Delegates Elected
Michael Ignatieff
1059
77%
Gerard Kennedy
619
76%
Stephane Dion
550
73%
Martha Hall-Findlay
33
73%
Bob Rae
689
73%
Scott Brison
125
69%
Ken Dryden
161
68%
Joe Volpe
105
47%
————
Kinsella says this means Iggy will probably win.
I would say it suggests that Bob Rae will almost certainly lose. But adding Dion and Kennedy’s delegates I get 1169. I also get a delegate total of 3341. This makes the winning delegate count 1671.
Two things to watch for on the first ballot: first, does Iggy beat his 1059 number on the first ballot. What this will suggest is that the fix was very much in down in the alternate delegate room. Second, do the first ballot votes add up to 3341? I would anticipate some slippage.
This is shaping up to be a pretty hardcore fight and one in which the tactics are getting fairly nasty. They will get nastier especially if there is a credentials fight occasioned by the alternate promotion procedure.
Written by jay on December 2nd, 2006 with no comments.
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Kinsella has a picture of the registration chaos at the LibCon,
“This photo, taken a minute ago on my cell camera, shows very, very many Liberals - who are very, very upset - waiting to “bump up” for the vacant delegate spots. This is where the leadership may now be won.
It is like the fabled helicopter lifting off the rooftop in Saigon, totally chaotic, and no other media is paying attention. They should.”
In that room the fix goes in - a no show Kennedy supporter is replaced with an Iggy supporter. If that happens once it is no big deal, a couple of hundred times and the entire process becomes tainted.
I’ve done a far from scientific scan of the blogs and there is nothing up on this. Laura over at The Tyee is on the story though. And here she has her man, Peyman Nazer, who arrived an alternate, was left outside the promotion room but, somehow, managed to get delegate credentials.
This has the potential to be a real scandal. Under normal rules a challenge to the voting procedure from the floor this evening is not at all out of the question; especially if there seems to be any evidence of systemic bias in favour of one candidate or another.
Written by jay on December 2nd, 2006 with no comments.
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*Ted and others today have been posting about the large group of Ignatieff supporters that greeted Iggy when he arrived at the convention centre this morning, and, more specifically, the CBC’s Susan Bonner calling it “the moment of the convention.” I have to disagree with Susan. All the camps have pre-arranged groups of supporters on hand as their candidates enter the hall. All are loud and boisterous. It makes for great b-roll for Susan and the other broadcast journalists, but it’s just theatre. The air war is over, the delegates are all here now and they’re a little too busy to watch TV. Jeff Jedras, a BCer in Toronto
Right now Jeff’s is my go to blog for convention coverage. Pictures and real live blogging from convention events. And a sense of humour.
Written by jay on December 1st, 2006 with no comments.
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During a session in which Rae took questions from delegates, one Liberal member asked if he thought Volpe was getting a tougher time during the race than he deserved.
“I’ve known Joe for a long time, and he’s one of the most practiced, seasoned parliamentarians and politicians in the country,” Rae said. ctv
Somehow, and it could be the spaghetti wine talking, I can’t get some weird variant of the Paul Simon lyric out of my head:
Where have you gone, Joe Volpe?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you (Ooo ooo ooo).
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
“Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away.”
It doesn’t scan but it catches the essence of Rae’s pandering.
Written by jay on December 1st, 2006 with no comments.
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A message from Kofi! How many world leaders would get a message from him? Jason Cherniak
Jason is too bright a guy to have missed the wonderfully ironic fact that the Holy Dumpling is just the sort of chap the corrupt ex Secretary General of the UN would have in his Rolodex (Blackberry….whatever). Says anything, does nothing, has a thousand top priorities that he never quite got around to. (Kinda like that Rwanda thing Kofi was going to deal with when he had time.)
More generally, it is a sign of just how far out of it the Dumpling was and the Liberal Party remains that a message from Kofi is somehow news.
Written by jay on December 1st, 2006 with no comments.
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Over at Stephen Taylor’s site he has a video interview with the ever twitchy Ann McLellan. She has a few harsh things to say about Ted Morton and thinks the Liberal convention is going to more exciting the more ballots there are.
What is interesting is that with not much more than a handheld video camera and You-Tube, Steve is doing pretty much the same thing as CPAC. A bit of image stabilization and someone else to hold the camera and Steve would be his own TV show every bit as well done as the average news cast.
Now, as I watch the CBC and its lamer buddies in MSM-TV ask the CRTC for a subscription fee and more advertising time I can’t help but think that Steve is on to something. Seriously, if all the bloggers at the Liberal convention had video cameras and there were a couple of people willing to edit tape and provide commentary there would be a fascinating bit of coverage at next to no cost. And, I suspect there would be a fair number of people willing to contribute a little money to see such coverage.
The CBC should be very, very worried.
Written by jay on December 1st, 2006 with 2 comments.
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At peak there were several hundred people upstairs, with a lineup going down the stairs, more people on the main level, more people milling around outside. These were people from all camps, Iggy people, Rae people, Dion people, all of who presumably passed up the chance to spend that time at their own candidate’s hospitality suite. I think the momentum is in the air, and i was really glad to see the broad support for my candidate because I believe he is best positioned to heal old wounds and renew this party as leader and Prime Minister. Gavin Magrath
The Tyee’s own Laura Drake (who seems to have made quite a hit in the blogging room) cites Paul Wells’ first law of Canadian politics that the most boring outcome is the likeliest.
While this may be true my own largely infallible and non-partisan rule of thumb is that the candidate with the best parties wins. The old joke that “they don’t call them political parties” for nothing is surprisingly acute.
The party/pretty rule actually makes sense if you look at the nature of political conventions. Essentially, for a week, very powerful people behave as if they are at a pep rally in a particularily enthusiastic highschool. Grown men and women put on silly hats, odd scarves and festoon themselves with buttons. They listen to a lot of policy debate which is about as important as Grade nine social studied because, as one Liberal realist said, “The Leader makes policy.” ( The implications of this application of Führerprinzip to Canadian politics is meat for another day.) They pay homage to the glorious past - “We’ll not see Bill Graham’s like again.” - and ritual deference to the Gods (and their sons on Earth). They cheer for their team during “demonstrations”. They show spirit and pep.
And party!
Now, remember Friday night in high school? Remember when a cool kid and a not so cool kid had a party the same Friday night? Or remember the difference between nightclubs with lineups and those you could just walk into? The biggest difference between a good and a mediocre party is that people want to be at a good party.
As in high school, so in life.
The weird part of the party principle is that it can’t be faked. Either a party rocks or it doesn’t. It is either the place to be or deadsville.
From various blog accounts it sounds like Kennedy won the first round. But he may have peaked too soon. After all, the first night is basically the Grade eight sock hop where everybody comes and nobody is quite sure who’s cool and who’s lame. There are two more party nights to the vote and party mo can spin on a dime.
(On a related note: KMG and I agree that one of the sure signs of a winning campaign is that the women involved are markedly pretty. Which, I suspect, may be the reason parties hosted by candidates who are in contention are rather more fun than some of the others.)
Written by jay on December 1st, 2006 with 1 comment.
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Let’s see…Leader of a debt ridden, corruption plagued political party whose years in the wilderness may only just have begun or Premier of the richest province in Canada.
If Jim Dinning wins the leadership of the Conservative Party in Alberta there is a fairly good chance that Alberta will rub along in Confederation, a bit resentful of the dollars flying off to support the nation of Quebec and the rest of the Canadas; but predictable, safe and not likely to rock the boat. Think Peter Lougheed/Don Getty.
If Ted Morton wins? He’s being painted as a socon which is not, looking at his record and platform, strictly true. But, more important than his allegedly socon views, Morton is a radical. In fact he is just the sort of radical who could take Alberta out of any number of federal programs like the CPP and the Canada Health Act. Along with the now Prime Minister, Morton signed the “firewall letter“.
While our Liberal friends duck the debate on what they could possibly have meant with the “nation” resolution and discuss who is electable in Quebec and Ontario, Morton will be putting the organization he helped develop for the Reform Party to work to bring out the vote on Saturday. At this instant it is still, apparently, possible to register to vote in the second round and it is a pretty good bet that Morton’s people will be combing the division roads of rural Alberta for every last vote.
Which ever of the Fab Four is elected in Montreal will seem remarkably insignificant if Ted Morton emerges as the Premier of Alberta. Klein talked a good game but, push to shove, would collapse in the face of the Feds; Morton is made of sterner stuff. “Maitres de chez nous” is not a foreign concept to Ted Morton but it may come as a bit of a surprise to the Editorial Board of the Globe and Mail. (The Editorial Board of the Toronto Star will, of course, greet news of Morton’s election by stuffing Kleenex in its ears and running in circles yelling “We can’t hear you.” over and over for the duration of Premier Morton’s tenure.)
Written by jay on November 29th, 2006 with 3 comments.
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A day after the House of Commons passed a Conservative motion to recognize the Québécois as a nation, the federal Liberals say they will not debate the contentious issue.
Liberal leadership candidates had been squabbling over their own motion, which was expected to be a flashpoint at this weekend’s party convention in Montreal.
William Hogg and Marc Belanger, who launched the move to discuss the Québécois nationhood motion at a meeting of Quebec Liberals in October, said the motion removed the need to discuss the issue.
“We have other important issues facing this country to discuss,” Hogg said Tuesday, citing Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan, the Kyoto Protocol and the country’s fiscal imbalance as priorities for the convention.” cbc
The last thing the Liberals - or at least the Iggy/Rae end of the party - want is an actual debate on the floor of the convention. No matter that the nation (er, the Canadian “sea to shining sea” nation) has been convulsed with this debate for the last two weeks and that Iggy, more or less, started it. Let’s talk about something else, please; just change the subject.
I have to bet that the great and the good in the Liberal party have been reading the polls and realize that “Quebec is a nation” is clobbering the Grits outside Quebec (and doing very little to help inside La Belle Nation).
However, like most things in politics this decision cuts a lot of different ways. First,it kicks the chair out from under Kennedy’s run as a man dedicated to the “One Canada”, the sentimental favorite of Trudeau era Grits. Second, it palms yet another card for Iggy who no longer needs to be both for and against “Quebec nationhood”. I am inclined to think it is a push for Rae and Dion; but by screwing Kennedy it makes it more likely that the Dion run up the middle might work.
The one thing which is certain is that Canadians are not going to given a clue where the Liberal Party stands on the Quebec “nation” question or the more interesting question of who might be counted as the citizens/members of such a nation.
Written by jay on November 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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