Endorsements from high-profile people have “significant influence” in the NDP, especially when it comes to the leadership race, says a former federal leadership candidate, but others say despite the number of top support, it all comes down to one-member, one-vote in the end.
“I think it’s hard to win in any party if you don’t have reasonably solid endorsements from at least a significant segment of the party,” NDP House Leader Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.) told The Hill Times last week. “I think they’re very important. Obviously it depends on the extent of the influence the person has who’s doing the endorsement, but getting Ed Broadbent or one of the provincial premiers, people of that stature, getting the endorsements of your colleagues, MPs in your caucus, or MLAs in the provinces, all of those carry the recommendation that is going to be followed by at least some people who support that individual.”
Mr. Comartin ran in the 2003 leadership campaign which elected Jack Layton on the first ballot. Heavy-hitters such as former leader Ed Broadbent and former Ontario leader Stephen Lewis backed Layton, who had previously twice run unsuccessfully in federal elections and who had been a Toronto city councillor before taking the NDP’s helm. Layton died from cancer on Aug. 22, 2011, and there are currently seven candidates vying to take over from him.
As of last week, NDP MP Thomas Mulcair (Outremont, Que.) has the most number of public endorsements, including the backing from almost all of the NDP’s 59-member Quebec caucus. He also has the backing of former governor general Ed Schreyer. NDP MP Romeo Saganash (Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou, Que.) dropped out of the race last month and threw his support to Mr. Mulcair and last week NDP leadership candidate Martin Singh said Mr. Mulcair is his second choice.
NDP leadership candidate Brian Topp, meanwhile, who stepped aside as party president to run, has the second most number of public endorsements, and has, arguably, the most number of high-profile ones, including those who previously supported Layton, such as Mr. Broadbent. Mr. Topp also has the backing of former premiers Roy Romanow and Lorne Calvert, and Shirley Douglas, Tommy Douglas’s daughter.
“I don’t think endorsements matter nearly as much in a regular campaign, but in a leadership campaign, within the confines of the party and I can’t say for sure of the other two major parties, it’s always had some significant influence in the NDP,” Mr. Comartin said.
NDP leadership candidate Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre, Ont.), also has an impressive list of supporters, including high-profile Manitoba provincial NDP players. Mr. Dewar’s brother, Bob Dewar and Michael Balagus are helping run Mr. Dewar’s campaign. He’s also backed by Innovation Minister Dave Chomiak, Family Services Minister Jennifer Howard, Health Minister Theresa Oswald, Housing Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross, Education Minister Nancy Allan, Minister of Children Kevin Chief, Finance Minister Stan Struthers, Minister of Advanced Education Erin Selby, and MLAs Greg Dewar and Dave Gaudreau.
NDP leadership candidate Niki Ashton (Churchill, Man.) has a number of Manitoba Cabinet ministers backing her, including her father Transportation Minister Steve Ashton, Deputy Premier Eric Robinson, Culture Minister Flor Marcelino and Trade Minister Peter Bjornson. MLAs Bidhu Jha, Drew Caldwell, Tom Nevakshonoff, Frank Whitehead, Clarence Petterson, and Ted Petterson, and Winnipeg city councillor Ross Eadie.
NDP MP Nathan Cullen (Skeena-Bulkley Valley, B.C.) doesn’t have as many public endorsements but does have the backing of NDP MPs Alex Atamanenko (British Columbia Southern Interior, B.C.), Fin Donnelly (New Westminster-Coquitlam, B.C.), Bruce Hyer (Thunder Bay-Superior North, Ont.), Brian Masse (Windsor West, Ont.), along with six B.C. MLAs, and Manitoba Cabinet minister Jim Rondeau.
NDP MP Peggy Nash (Parkdale-High Park, Ont.) has an impressive list of endorsements, including Toronto and Windsor city councillors, Nova Scotia and Manitoba MLAs, union bosses, artists, MPs NDP MP Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet (Hochelaga, Que.), Raymond Côté (Beauport Limoilou, Que.), Randall Garrison (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, B.C.), Laurin Liu (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, Que.), Elaine Michaud (Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier, Que.), Anne Quach (Beauharnois-Salaberry, Que.) and Mike Sullivan (York South-Weston, Ont.) as well as former NDP leader Alexa McDonough, and actress Sarah Polley.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) said, endorsements were important for her because she was a party outsider. She hadn’t been a member of the Green Party until she resigned from the Sierra Club to run, and while she had high-profile endorsements from people such as Margaret Atwood and Robert Bateman, it’s the party organizers and members she worked to get support from.
“I really needed to cultivate endorsements from people inside the Green Party who were long-standing members because I think a lot of the existing establishment Greens tended to prefer [her opponent] David Chernushenko, so I really needed the endorsements from Green Party provincial leaders, names recognized within the Green Party,” she told The Hill Times last week, noting that sometimes it was “like pulling teeth” to get an endorsement, and other times it was very easy. “Endorsements matter a lot. They communicate a lot to your membership, especially if you’re able to find a surprising endorsement.”
Ms. May noted in the NDP candidates’ case, for example, it would not be surprising for Ms. Nash, who has a union background, to receive support from union officials, nor would it be surprising that Mr. Topp, former ACTRA president, to secure support from artists.
“You expect to see Quebec MPs endorsing Tom Mulcair. When Tom Mulcair snags a B.C. endorsement or when Peggy gets an endorsement that’s non-union, those are ways of flagging that you’re appealing not only to your predictable base will matter a lot to people,” Ms. May said, joking that no NDP leadership candidate would want her endorsement.
For others, however, endorsements are not the be all and end all of leadership campaigns.
Liberal MP Scott Brison (Kings-Hants, N.S.), who ran in the 2006 Liberal leadership race which elected Liberal MP Stéphane Dion (Saint Laurent-Cartierville, Que.), said that endorsements help with credibility, but when it comes time to vote, the endorser only has one vote.
“Sometimes organization is more important than endorsements, particularly in a one-member one-vote system,” he said last week. “You need a certain number of endorsements to establish credibility but beyond that, it’s the organization that will drive the votes home. The pedigree of your supporters is not as important as the quantity of your supporters.”
Conservative pundit Tim Powers, vice-president of Summa Strategies, agreed. He said people making endorsements help frame a story, but if they don’t do more than put their name out there, it doesn’t make much of a difference.
“Brian Topp, for example, having Ed Broadbent, having Roy Romanow, certainly speaks to the message that he’s trying to drive, that he’s the guy who’s most connected with the NDP’s history, their social democratic roots, he’s had success in working in an NDP government which is a message he wants to drive, which is what Romanow’s endorsement says about him. Also having Ed Broadbent there and the legacy and respect people have for Mr. Broadbent, all of that probably helps Brian’s story,” Mr. Powers said. “But if you’re to believe the various media reports and reports from people in the know in the NDP it doesn’t look like Brian’s going to win the leadership race, so having all those heavy hitting endorsements isn’t going to translate into victory and I think that’s what people need to understand. They’re good for media stories, they’re good for your own branding, but they’re only effective if those doing the endorsements do the work and deliver delegates or voters for the people they’re supporting.”
Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour, N.B.), a one-time leadership candidate who dropped out of the race in 2008, said, however, that endorsements are on their way out, especially since all major parties have moved to a one-member one-vote system.
“I think that the ordinary party member or supporter in the case of our [Liberal Party] selection process, both, will make up their own minds and they make up their own minds based on things they read online, they make up their own minds based on electronic town halls, they make up their minds I think on a series of factors that didn’t exist 50 years ago,” he said.
“Fifty years ago, you had a local campaign boss who would ‘deliver’ the riding. Those days are over. They’re over because A, there’s not delegates anymore and B, if you cast a very big broad net as I hope people do, people on the periphery of the net aren’t impressed if someone in the centre of the net issued a news release,” said Mr. LeBlanc.
When it comes to caucus support, there are mixed feelings. For instance, Mr. Powers noted that in the 2000 Canadian Alliance leadership race, Preston Manning had most of the caucus support but lost to Stockwell Day.
Similarly, in the 2006 Liberal leadership campaign, Michael Ignatieff had the majority of his caucus support, but also lost the leadership bid.
“Caucus support is different, I think, only in this regard. These are the people you work with every week. So if your colleagues that you work with every day are not able to support you or support you overwhelmingly, it is to some extent a judgment of your peers on the work that you’ve done,” Mr. LeBlanc said.
Mr. Comartin said caucus support depends on what’s going on in the party at the time and may or may not affect party dynamics when a leader is eventually chosen. For example, when Audrey McLaughlin won the 1989 leadership campaign against front runner Dave Barrett, the party was divided and never recovered until Layton took over. Ms. McLaughlin took the NDP from 43 seats in the 1988 election to nine in 1993.
“You can point to, historically, where it has at times [divided the party] and other times it hasn’t. To a great degree, that depends on the leadership candidate themselves that they make it very clear to their supporters that whatever the outcome, you’re expecting your support to stay loyal to the party and to whoever the new leader is because if in fact you’re the successful one, you expect the other candidates and their supporters to do the same. Out of a sense really of integrity and honesty you should be saying that to your own people. I think we generally have done that,” Mr. Comartin said. “Although, the split that occurred in the convention when Audrey McLaughlin was elected, that had repercussions for years after. On the other hand, and I say this with a great deal of pride, there wasn’t one member who either of the candidates or of their supporters in the caucus who didn’t immediately get behind Jack.”
Mr. Powers said that it’s the nature of politics, however, to be able to go from divisive battles to cooperation.
“Politicians are politicians and at the end of the day, if their candidate doesn’t win they’ll find a way to work to curry favour with or cooperate with the new leader or they’re non-chosen candidate,” Mr. Powers said. “It forces people to go from combative to collegial in a matter of seconds particularly in leadership races when your own political career may be hanging in the balance.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH
“I think it’s hard to win in any party if you don’t have reasonably solid endorsements from at least a significant segment of the party,” NDP House Leader Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.) told The Hill Times last week. “I think they’re very important. Obviously it depends on the extent of the influence the person has who’s doing the endorsement, but getting Ed Broadbent or one of the provincial premiers, people of that stature, getting the endorsements of your colleagues, MPs in your caucus, or MLAs in the provinces, all of those carry the recommendation that is going to be followed by at least some people who support that individual.”
Mr. Comartin ran in the 2003 leadership campaign which elected Jack Layton on the first ballot. Heavy-hitters such as former leader Ed Broadbent and former Ontario leader Stephen Lewis backed Layton, who had previously twice run unsuccessfully in federal elections and who had been a Toronto city councillor before taking the NDP’s helm. Layton died from cancer on Aug. 22, 2011, and there are currently seven candidates vying to take over from him.
As of last week, NDP MP Thomas Mulcair (Outremont, Que.) has the most number of public endorsements, including the backing from almost all of the NDP’s 59-member Quebec caucus. He also has the backing of former governor general Ed Schreyer. NDP MP Romeo Saganash (Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou, Que.) dropped out of the race last month and threw his support to Mr. Mulcair and last week NDP leadership candidate Martin Singh said Mr. Mulcair is his second choice.
NDP leadership candidate Brian Topp, meanwhile, who stepped aside as party president to run, has the second most number of public endorsements, and has, arguably, the most number of high-profile ones, including those who previously supported Layton, such as Mr. Broadbent. Mr. Topp also has the backing of former premiers Roy Romanow and Lorne Calvert, and Shirley Douglas, Tommy Douglas’s daughter.
“I don’t think endorsements matter nearly as much in a regular campaign, but in a leadership campaign, within the confines of the party and I can’t say for sure of the other two major parties, it’s always had some significant influence in the NDP,” Mr. Comartin said.
NDP leadership candidate Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre, Ont.), also has an impressive list of supporters, including high-profile Manitoba provincial NDP players. Mr. Dewar’s brother, Bob Dewar and Michael Balagus are helping run Mr. Dewar’s campaign. He’s also backed by Innovation Minister Dave Chomiak, Family Services Minister Jennifer Howard, Health Minister Theresa Oswald, Housing Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross, Education Minister Nancy Allan, Minister of Children Kevin Chief, Finance Minister Stan Struthers, Minister of Advanced Education Erin Selby, and MLAs Greg Dewar and Dave Gaudreau.
NDP leadership candidate Niki Ashton (Churchill, Man.) has a number of Manitoba Cabinet ministers backing her, including her father Transportation Minister Steve Ashton, Deputy Premier Eric Robinson, Culture Minister Flor Marcelino and Trade Minister Peter Bjornson. MLAs Bidhu Jha, Drew Caldwell, Tom Nevakshonoff, Frank Whitehead, Clarence Petterson, and Ted Petterson, and Winnipeg city councillor Ross Eadie.
NDP MP Nathan Cullen (Skeena-Bulkley Valley, B.C.) doesn’t have as many public endorsements but does have the backing of NDP MPs Alex Atamanenko (British Columbia Southern Interior, B.C.), Fin Donnelly (New Westminster-Coquitlam, B.C.), Bruce Hyer (Thunder Bay-Superior North, Ont.), Brian Masse (Windsor West, Ont.), along with six B.C. MLAs, and Manitoba Cabinet minister Jim Rondeau.
NDP MP Peggy Nash (Parkdale-High Park, Ont.) has an impressive list of endorsements, including Toronto and Windsor city councillors, Nova Scotia and Manitoba MLAs, union bosses, artists, MPs NDP MP Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet (Hochelaga, Que.), Raymond Côté (Beauport Limoilou, Que.), Randall Garrison (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, B.C.), Laurin Liu (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, Que.), Elaine Michaud (Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier, Que.), Anne Quach (Beauharnois-Salaberry, Que.) and Mike Sullivan (York South-Weston, Ont.) as well as former NDP leader Alexa McDonough, and actress Sarah Polley.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) said, endorsements were important for her because she was a party outsider. She hadn’t been a member of the Green Party until she resigned from the Sierra Club to run, and while she had high-profile endorsements from people such as Margaret Atwood and Robert Bateman, it’s the party organizers and members she worked to get support from.
“I really needed to cultivate endorsements from people inside the Green Party who were long-standing members because I think a lot of the existing establishment Greens tended to prefer [her opponent] David Chernushenko, so I really needed the endorsements from Green Party provincial leaders, names recognized within the Green Party,” she told The Hill Times last week, noting that sometimes it was “like pulling teeth” to get an endorsement, and other times it was very easy. “Endorsements matter a lot. They communicate a lot to your membership, especially if you’re able to find a surprising endorsement.”
Ms. May noted in the NDP candidates’ case, for example, it would not be surprising for Ms. Nash, who has a union background, to receive support from union officials, nor would it be surprising that Mr. Topp, former ACTRA president, to secure support from artists.
“You expect to see Quebec MPs endorsing Tom Mulcair. When Tom Mulcair snags a B.C. endorsement or when Peggy gets an endorsement that’s non-union, those are ways of flagging that you’re appealing not only to your predictable base will matter a lot to people,” Ms. May said, joking that no NDP leadership candidate would want her endorsement.
For others, however, endorsements are not the be all and end all of leadership campaigns.
Liberal MP Scott Brison (Kings-Hants, N.S.), who ran in the 2006 Liberal leadership race which elected Liberal MP Stéphane Dion (Saint Laurent-Cartierville, Que.), said that endorsements help with credibility, but when it comes time to vote, the endorser only has one vote.
“Sometimes organization is more important than endorsements, particularly in a one-member one-vote system,” he said last week. “You need a certain number of endorsements to establish credibility but beyond that, it’s the organization that will drive the votes home. The pedigree of your supporters is not as important as the quantity of your supporters.”
Conservative pundit Tim Powers, vice-president of Summa Strategies, agreed. He said people making endorsements help frame a story, but if they don’t do more than put their name out there, it doesn’t make much of a difference.
“Brian Topp, for example, having Ed Broadbent, having Roy Romanow, certainly speaks to the message that he’s trying to drive, that he’s the guy who’s most connected with the NDP’s history, their social democratic roots, he’s had success in working in an NDP government which is a message he wants to drive, which is what Romanow’s endorsement says about him. Also having Ed Broadbent there and the legacy and respect people have for Mr. Broadbent, all of that probably helps Brian’s story,” Mr. Powers said. “But if you’re to believe the various media reports and reports from people in the know in the NDP it doesn’t look like Brian’s going to win the leadership race, so having all those heavy hitting endorsements isn’t going to translate into victory and I think that’s what people need to understand. They’re good for media stories, they’re good for your own branding, but they’re only effective if those doing the endorsements do the work and deliver delegates or voters for the people they’re supporting.”
Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour, N.B.), a one-time leadership candidate who dropped out of the race in 2008, said, however, that endorsements are on their way out, especially since all major parties have moved to a one-member one-vote system.
“I think that the ordinary party member or supporter in the case of our [Liberal Party] selection process, both, will make up their own minds and they make up their own minds based on things they read online, they make up their own minds based on electronic town halls, they make up their minds I think on a series of factors that didn’t exist 50 years ago,” he said.
“Fifty years ago, you had a local campaign boss who would ‘deliver’ the riding. Those days are over. They’re over because A, there’s not delegates anymore and B, if you cast a very big broad net as I hope people do, people on the periphery of the net aren’t impressed if someone in the centre of the net issued a news release,” said Mr. LeBlanc.
When it comes to caucus support, there are mixed feelings. For instance, Mr. Powers noted that in the 2000 Canadian Alliance leadership race, Preston Manning had most of the caucus support but lost to Stockwell Day.
Similarly, in the 2006 Liberal leadership campaign, Michael Ignatieff had the majority of his caucus support, but also lost the leadership bid.
“Caucus support is different, I think, only in this regard. These are the people you work with every week. So if your colleagues that you work with every day are not able to support you or support you overwhelmingly, it is to some extent a judgment of your peers on the work that you’ve done,” Mr. LeBlanc said.
Mr. Comartin said caucus support depends on what’s going on in the party at the time and may or may not affect party dynamics when a leader is eventually chosen. For example, when Audrey McLaughlin won the 1989 leadership campaign against front runner Dave Barrett, the party was divided and never recovered until Layton took over. Ms. McLaughlin took the NDP from 43 seats in the 1988 election to nine in 1993.
“You can point to, historically, where it has at times [divided the party] and other times it hasn’t. To a great degree, that depends on the leadership candidate themselves that they make it very clear to their supporters that whatever the outcome, you’re expecting your support to stay loyal to the party and to whoever the new leader is because if in fact you’re the successful one, you expect the other candidates and their supporters to do the same. Out of a sense really of integrity and honesty you should be saying that to your own people. I think we generally have done that,” Mr. Comartin said. “Although, the split that occurred in the convention when Audrey McLaughlin was elected, that had repercussions for years after. On the other hand, and I say this with a great deal of pride, there wasn’t one member who either of the candidates or of their supporters in the caucus who didn’t immediately get behind Jack.”
Mr. Powers said that it’s the nature of politics, however, to be able to go from divisive battles to cooperation.
“Politicians are politicians and at the end of the day, if their candidate doesn’t win they’ll find a way to work to curry favour with or cooperate with the new leader or they’re non-chosen candidate,” Mr. Powers said. “It forces people to go from combative to collegial in a matter of seconds particularly in leadership races when your own political career may be hanging in the balance.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH
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