Mulcair's won?

[blake 3:17]

It seems that the rightist leadership candidate for Canada's NDP is going to win.


I thought a centre leftist or centrist would win. The ballots aren't counted yet, but Mulcair seems way ahead.

Mulcair is fervently pro-Zionist, hostile to the Left of the party and the Left of the union movement, bad on our internal colonies. Maybe things'll change in the next couple of hours but...

[NewLeft]

Mulcair is fervently pro-Zionist, hostile to the Left of the party and the Left of the union movement, bad on our internal colonies. Maybe things'll change in the next couple of hours but...
That's pretty much the whole party except for one or two who have slipped.

[blake 3:17]

From John Ibbitson, a small c conservative and a very perceptive political journalist:


The supporters of Toronto MP Peggy Nash, who finished fourth and is also off the ballot, are expected to break heavily in favour of Mr. Topp in the third round. But there aren’t enough of those votes to close the gap with Mr. Mulcair. That means British Columbia MP Nathan Cullen, who is in third, will be the kingmaker.

Every indication – including many conversations with supporters – suggests Mr. Cullen’s supporters prefer Mr. Mulcair as their second choice to Mr. Topp. Why? Because Mr. Mulcair is seen as the candidate who represents a break with the party establishment. Mr. Cullen’s supporters favour greater co-operation with the Liberal Party, an idea intensely resisted by the NDP’s ancien regime.

If I were in the Party I'd have supported Nash. I have some degree of sympathyfor Cullen, who's main platform is collaboration with the Liberals and Greens, a very crude Popular Frontism, but has a basic logic. There've been various campaigns create a short term electoral pact against the Conservatives, some kinda silly, and one or two quite wise by emphasising that a non-Conservative coalition government SHOULD make electoral reform its top priority.

[blake 3:17]

That's pretty much the whole party except for one or two who have slipped.

Hmmmm? Not understanding.

[NewLeft]

Hmmmm? Not understanding.
The fact that the party is undoubtedly pro-Zionist, so it's not just Mulcair.

[Salyut]

Apparently someone DDOS'd the NDP servers used for the voting... :glare:

[NewLeft]

Apparently someone DDOS'd the NDP servers used for the voting... :glare:
No one wins..! No one can replace Jack Lenin lookalike.

[blake 3:17]

The fact that the party is undoubtedly pro-Zionist, so it's not just Mulcair.

The party position is a real fence sitting one, but Mulcair is very ardently pro-Zionist. The only one as far to the Right on this one is Pat Martin.

Several promiment NDP MPs are in the Canadian-Israel Committee (sorta Canada's AIPAC) but some have tried their best. I'm not aware of any explicitly endorsing BDS.

From Murray Dobbin on Mulcair punking Libby Davies re: Palestine --


In this case Vancouver East MP Libby Davies got bushwacked by a pro-Israel activist posing as a neutral -- if not pro-Palestinian -- blogger. After a rally for the Palestinians criticizing Israel's deadly assault on the aid flotilla, a man approached Libby asking for an interview. As she always does, because she never hides her views, she complied. He immediately set her up with what he called a "background question." He asked when the occupation began, 1948 or 1967.

Libby hesitated then said 1948. She made the point that the date was not important -- that whatever the date the occupation was the longest in the world -- and far too long.
The next day the interview appeared on YouTube. But in 24 hours it had gone nowhere -- just 28 views. Then the most vociferous supporter of Israel in the NDP caucus, Thomas Mulcair, got wind of it and it escalated out of control. He went on a relentless campaign to punish Libby. The spin he helped create was that if Libby believed the occupation began in 1948 then she, ipso facto, believes that Israel has no right to exist. Libby has always gone to great lengths to make it clear that she supports Israel's right to exist and the two-state solution endorsed by the NDP. But suddenly Jack Layton was in full-panic mode. He apologized to the Israeli ambassador. He hung Libby out to dry. He forced her to issue a public apology.

Apology? For what?

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/murray-dobbin/2010/06/libby-davies-and-ndp-jack-laytons-leadership-test

[blake 3:17]

From the Socialist Project:


Mulcair's Victory: A New Direction for the NDP?

Richard Fidler

There is a lot of speculation going the rounds about whether or to what degree Thomas Mulcair will change the direction of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP). Mulcair, as everyone who pays attention to Canadian politics knows by now, emerged the winner in the NDP's contest to replace deceased leader Jack Layton. In the fourth and final vote at the March 24 convention in Toronto, Mulcair scored 57 per cent against runner-up Brian Topp's 43 per cent. The election of the party's most prominent Quebec MP was no big surprise, especially in Quebec where it was widely considered the logical outcome to the NDP's upset gains in last year's federal election when the party won 59 of the province's 75 MPs – 60 per cent of the NDP's parliamentary caucus, making the party the Official Opposition and thus a credible contender for government for the first time in its history. But what does the election of this former Liberal mean for the future of the NDP? The answer is not entirely clear, although clues abound.


Modernization?

Mulcair himself revealed little of his particular agenda during the leadership contest, nor was he strongly challenged to do so by the competing candidates, all of whom were promising to pursue “Layton's legacy.” Mulcair spoke vaguely of “modernizing” the party, of ditching old rhetoric about “working people,” and of the need to demonstrate the NDP's competence in “managing the economy.” But there was enough evidence on the record to arouse concerns about his commitment to social justice issues long championed by the NDP. Columnist Murray Dobbin, an NDP sympathizer, noted some of these during the campaign, describing him as a “big ‘L’ Liberal at heart, who is barely out of synch with the one per cent the occupiers have targeted.”

Dobbin pointed to Mulcair's support of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, anathema to the labour movement and environmentalists. “The NAFTA,” Mulcair said in a recent interview, “is the first international agreement that had provisions dealing with the environment. You can't throw out the baby with the bath water.” Dobbin commented:

“The FTA and NAFTA were the single most damaging political acts the country has ever had to endure – unleashing two decades of suppression of wages, the rapid depletion of natural resources, falling productivity, the loss of several hundred thousand of the best jobs in the country, and despite Mulcair's naïve declaration, the virtual end to any new environmental legislation by the federal government (after it lost two NAFTA challenges).”

But the NDP long ago abandoned any pretence of opposing NAFTA. Nor has it campaigned against the pending free-trade agreement with the European Union, currently being negotiated in secret. As for Mulcair's concern for environmental issues:

“In 2007, Kady O'Malley interviewed Mulcair and asked him to describe himself as a politician. He replied: ‘Above and beyond anything else, I'm a public administrator and a manager. I chaired Quebec's largest regulatory agency [the Office des Professions] and reduced staff there and brought in management schemes to make things more effective.... When I was minister of the environment, I reduced by 15 per cent the budget of the ministry.’...”

Palestinian solidarity activists are understandably alarmed at Mulcair's unconditional support for Israel. His campaign co-chair was former MP Lorne Nystrom, now a director of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the Israel lobby's main pressure group. While co-deputy leader of the federal NDP, Mulcair publicly humiliated the other deputy leader, Vancouver MP Libby Davies, forcing her (with Layton's complicity) to recant in Parliament her historically accurate statement that Israel has been occupying Palestinian land since 1948.

Although he may not have solicited their support, Mulcair appeared to be favoured for leader by some elements not known for their NDP sympathies.

Journalist and activist Derrick O'Keefe, examining the lists of donors to the NDP leadership campaign on the Elections Canada website, found that among those contributing to Mulcair's candidacy were billionaire financier Gerald Schwartz, the CEO of Onex Corporation and a co-founder of CanWest Global Communications. Schwartz and his wife, book chain magnate Heather Reisman, founded the Heseg Foundation for Lone Soldiers, which provides money to cover tuition and living expenses for non-Israelis who serve in the Israeli army. “In 2006,” O'Keefe noted, “the couple made headlines by abandoning their traditional support for the Liberals in favour of the Conservatives after Stephen Harper had given full-throated support to Israel's operation against Lebanon.”

Contributing to Mulcair's leadership campaign as well was another Onex director, Anthony Munk, who is also a director of Barrick Gold Corporation, the Canadian mining giant founded by his father Peter Munk. Barrick is a prime target of environmentalists and indigenous struggling in many countries against its pillage of local communities and natural resources.

Also noteworthy was the especially sympathetic coverage given to Mulcair's campaign in the journals of Canada's major newspaper chains, Postmedia (successor to CanWest) and Groupe Gesca, a subsidiary of the Desmarais family's Power Corporation.

What About the Liberals?

However, there was no indication of major policy differences among the candidates during the five public debates the party held.[1] In fact, the one question that attracted the most media attention was whether the NDP would or should now orient toward formal alliance or even merger with the federal Liberals. This speculation has increased now that Liberal interim leader Bob Rae, the former NDP premier of Ontario, shares the Opposition front benches with ex-Liberal Mulcair in the federal parliament.

Although Mulcair may, as alleged by many, be keen to remake the NDP into some version of Tony Blair's “New Labour,” and thus an appropriate candidate to replace or merge with the Liberals, the NDP is determined at this point to firm up its position as a “government in waiting,” hoping to replace Stephen Harper's Tory majority government in the next election three years from now. And the Liberals are still struggling to recover their historic position as Canada's “natural governing party.” But there is no secret about NDP readiness to ally with Liberals if that will help ease their way into government.

Full article: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/611.php

[NewLeft]

Do you even feel welcome in the NDP? I remember the disgust on the campaigners face when they knocked on my door. Yet they still expected me to vote for their guy, uh no. Why even bother with this party..? It they self-destruct, it would not matter (to me, at least).

[blake 3:17]

Do you even feel welcome in the NDP? I remember the disgust on the campaigners face when they knocked on my door.

They've given up trying to get money out of me, which is good. Why the look of disgust? Some kind of prejudice or discrimination? Was that for the by election?

I got an interesting debrief on the leadership convention from a close friend who was supporting one of the more marginal candidates. The whole thing just sounded incredibly dull, loud and obnoxious.

I stopped volunteering for them when they called for mandatory minimum sentences. Apparently Nash really effed up on the rural base (her top rural issue apparently was the long gun registry (ooops!))

I've heard some good things on Cullen, who's rightish and was proposing collaboration with the Liberals and Greens -- But not the Bloc. Oops.

Mulcair is doing great in the polls today!