Day 1

Well, one day down. Dean had a great speech, even if the 14 acts from the maritimes went overtime beforehand. Hospitality suites were fine. Liblogs had a decent turnout, although mostly Dion people. GK's was packed, although not free drinks (and Trudeau had at least a half hour with the media. Also, apparently Wresnewskij has a great recipe for perogies). Iggy's had a pretty good turnout, and Scott Reid had some interesting comments, which I may perhaps let others explain. Let's see what tomorrow will bring us.

Making my way to the Quebec Nation

I'm on my way on the train now into the convention, having paid for a pretty crappy internet service to pass my time on the ride. It's only taken about 10 minutes to sign on to blogger.

But aside from that, I will be getting into Montreal in about an hour, and I'm looking forward to this weekend. The train seems pretty full of delegates (no poll taken, but I've seen more than a couple GK and Iggy pins around). I'll try to keep writing as much as I can in the next few days, maybe even get a few posts in from other people to get some variety to the coverage. Stay tuned!

Convention

Well, I'm off to convention tomorrow. Should be an exciting time overall. I'll try to get a few posts in when I find the time, and I'm sure everyone will be able to catch comments from lots of people this weekend.

But really, however it ends, we're gonna have a lot of people to lead us heading into the next election, since I hope at least all the frontrunners will go hard to campaign for us, allowing us to be able to cover more ground. It won't be easy, but I think all the candidates will have a great chance to win for us.

Candidate Profiles: Michael Ignatieff

Well, we come to the end of the profile series now with the man in first overall in delegate numbers, Michael Ignatieff.

Michael Ignatieff

Oh, what to make of MI? He's certainly the media darling of the campaign, getting most of the attention. He's been the frontrunner for about a year now. And lots of people hate him.

And I mean they hate him.

Almost more than Volpe.

Now, I can definitely see why people wouldn't like him and wouldn't be fond of him being the leader (his right-wing stances on foreign affairs, his numerous numerous blunders), but the hate-on people get gets a bit disturbing at times. As for me, I don't see why people can hate him so much. Are there others I want to win more than him? Yes, hence my support for GK. But would he be the downfall of the Liberal party, the male Kim Campbell (as a conservative friend of mine opined)? I don't think he'd do that bad. Even if he has really contrary opinions, he is quite eloquent in explaining them.

As I said to people last May at the LPC(O) convention after hearing him speak, I thought that he was a very talented man, and with a bit more political experience, maybe some time in cabinet, he'd be a great person to have as leader. I don't mind his stances on foreign policy, since he explains it well (albeit a bit lengthily), and I don't think we'd lose too many voters from that. And it would definitely be interesting to have a real intellectual as a PM and not simply a politician, to see how they would do.

But to actually be PM, he'd have to win. He has the tendency to say what comes to mind, then go on for 5-10 minutes about why he thinks that way. That isn't so bad when doing it in a closed environment in little groups, but in debates, that doesn't work. In a debate or election campaign, the conservatives will take anything he said and plaster it around. He can't go to every household in the country to give his opinion, so it will sting. With him as leader, we'd face most of our campaign time fixing his mistakes, and not enough time getting policy or being able to attack the opponents lack of doing anything in parliament.

So that is in brief why I don't support him, and why he is not my first choice for leader. Now, I was asked recently if it came down to Rae vs. Iggy, who would I vote for. Honestly, I'm not sure. As I said, I'm not as opposed to him as most people (at least as much as most people on the GK campaign, which I would wager has the highest "non-Iggy" amount of delegates), so I won't need to drink away my sorrows if he wins. [I'm sure I will anyways, but that's another matter entirely].

Convention Prediction:

Well, he's simply gonna have to prove that he's not a terrible leader. As I said before, had he run gaffe-free since the DSM, he'd make a lot more friends. This recent Nation question will be interesting to see how it plays out. He may get a boost from Quebec delegates who like his rigid, early stance for recognizing Quebec, but then again he may not be able to attract as many non-Quebecois voters this way. It's very hard to see a way that we could not be on the last ballot, so it's gonna be very interesting if people really hate him that much, or if all the predictions from last April are correct and Iggy will win.

Future:

Even with his rumours of not running depending on who won, for his reputation he won't be able to back out. I really don't think he'll be overly interested in sitting in opposition, but he's got to stick it out for at least a few years. He's too old to be able to run for leadership next time, even if he would probably be better once he had a bit more experience. If he doesn't win, it would be interesting what cabinet spot to give him. I think he'd be a very interesting foreign affairs minister, but it would be a very controversial appointment.

Candidate Profiles: Bob Rae

Now, we come to the man in second place, Bob Rae.

Bob Rae

Rae is an interesting fellow. After Volpe, he's the hardest to defend. I mean, ask anybody, and they'll tell you that they would never vote Liberal with Rae at the lead.

But then the polls come out and show him almost more electable than some of the others. It really doesn't seem to make sense.

Anyways, with that out of the way, I must say that Rae is far and away the most "politiciany" of the bunch. He's a great public speaker, and would probably do well leading the party. Yet there's some part of me which really doesn't believe he would actually try to change things. He's got the highest average fundraising numbers of anyone. He's taken out way more loans than the rest of the candidates. I just get the sense that he's another member of the old guard (even if he is the newest member).

But even if he may not be the greatest person for the job, as I said, he's a politician and would do very well in debates. He seems masterful at weaving his way in and out of topics without people noticing, and would definitely be a way to steal lots of NDP voters.

Convention Prediction:
Bob's gonna have to try to show that he can win, and that he's not unlikeable. If he does, then he stands a great chance at winning. Ideally he's going to want to pick up a bottom tier candidate or 2 to help solidify his support, then hope that he can steal more of the 4th place people's delegates than the 3rd place person. Even at that, he's going to have to hope for the "stop Iggy" movement to be strong. And even with all that, if I had to put my money down on anyone, I'd put it on him.

Future:
He'll stick around for a bit, to show that he's a real Liberal. He'll be a strong voice in opposition if we're there, either as a leader or just as a normal MP. Prime Minister Bob Rae? I guess it could be worse. But unless if he gets to that point, hard to say how long he'll stick around. I would guess if he wins the leadership he'll last either 2 wins in a row or 2 losses in a row. If he doesn't win, I could see him sticking around for a few years, especially if he's given a decent cabinet spot (maybe something like industry).

Dryden and Dion

Dryden Speech

Good on Ken.

As for Dion's speech, I would say that he is a bright man, and has some well reasoned arguments. But the fact that he can throw out 3 different definitions for the word and proclaim that only one or 2 of them are "correct" is exactly the point that Kennedy is making. We should only vote in favour of a motion which you know exactly what it means. We have the Clarity act which only recognizes referendums with a clear question, why can't we apply the same logic to motions in the house of commons?

Opposing the Nation

Grit leadership hopeful Kennedy bucks tide, opposes Quebec nation resolution

Finally, someone stepping up for what's right.

Candidate Profiles: Gerard Kennedy

Well, we now come to the man sitting in 3rd place for our profile series, Gerard Kennedy.

Gerard Kennedy

I had figured I would support Gerard quite a while ago. I didn't know much about him at the time, but I'd heard he was a younger candidate, worked at the food banks in Edmonton and Toronto, was a CEO of the year in the early 90, had done admirably in Ontario as education minister yet not even having a degree himself, and was bilingual. Almost all of that was true.

My first chance to meet Gerard was at LPC(O). He was suffering from a cold, and thus wasn't overly enthusiastic, but I did like his speech to the youth in the afternoon. He got up on a chair, and gave a good talk to us all. My only comment at that was that he didn't say anything in french at that event.

Now, the recurring theme here is his french capabilities. He's passable in french, certainly no worse than Harper was a couple years ago. To be truthful, I was expecting he would be a bit better than he is, but if you're not used to talking it regularly, it's hard to pick it up right away (heck, I'd taken french immersion from pre-school until Grade 12, then 2 years without it and I could barely order a combo meal from Harveys in french).

Apart from that, he's got a lot of talents. His team is very youthful and full of energy (well, except for the fact that Telegdi is endorsing him. I still can't figure that one out). And he's gotten where he has without any real media coverage. People still don't really think he's a major player, even if at SummerFling he was one vote behind Iggy in the straw poll (boy was that annoying on the bus ride home from Peterborough). He's sitting in 3rd, but even today when they were going over strengths and weaknesses on Question Period they went Iggy, Rae, Dion, Kennedy, in that order.

But back to my experiences with the campaign. He has actually come to KW and visited our club twice. 2 more times than Rae, Iggy, and Dion combined. He came for our club's wine and cheese fundraiser back in June (along with Dryden, Bennett, and Fry), and again a week before the DSM to give a quick speech to our club. He came in and answered some tough questions, and from those I talked to, most people were very impressed by his answers. He knows how to answer questions, and while he may not be as experienced at the federal level in politics, he certainly has learned a lot in the last 6 months and definitely gotten up to speed.

But really, the part I like most about him, is his focus on renewal. He seems to be one of the few people who doesn't blindly think that just changing our leader will bring us back in favour with the people. I'm a firm believer that we need to do more than just put a new coat of paint on the party and make it look like we're a new group. And I, like Justin Trudeau, believes that he has the best vision for how to do that.

Convention Prediction:
We'll go in with a big team, ready to defend our vision for the country and try to get people to see things the way we do. It won't be easy, but it'll be interesting. The first few days should be all trying to convince people that Kennedy is the right man to lead the party and the country. Then we get to the vote. If Dion passed Gerard, then my guess is the Kennedy delegates will swing to him. If we stay ahead of Dion, then we just need to pick up more from him than Rae does in order to pass Rae. Even at that it won't be easy, but Kennedy definitely has a decent shot at taking it all.

Future:
However it ends, we all know Kennedy has a long future. If he loses, the leader will be in his late 50s and Gerard's going to have to be considered the frontrunner for next time. If he wins, then we've got an election to lead. It will be harder for Harper to run negative ads against Gerard than some of the others, but it still won't be an easy campaign.

Candidate Profile: Stephane Dion

Continuing on in our profile series, we come to the #4 candidate, Stephane Dion.

Stephane Dion

I've had many different opinions of Stephane. At first, I thought he was a decent candidate, and probably my second choice. Then came LPC(O) back in May, and as with many others, my opinion of him increased. At that point he became for sure my second choice, and I was really impressed with him.

I held that opinion over most of the summer, Dion being the guy that I always liked and would not be sad in the least if he won. Then something happened. I honestly don't quite remember what it was, but around late August/early September he started doing stuff I didn't like. I didn't become so sold on him. I wavered.

And that opinion has continued along. Even today, I got a phone call from the Strategic Council asking about my delegate intentions, and I said I was unsure of my second choice [on a side note, I'm interested to see, especially for the lower people, what the answers for the question about your candidate dropping off if you keep your choice or go by the candidate's].

I still believe that Dion would be a good leader, but I'm not sure if this is the right time for him. That being said, he's still got a good chance, since if Kennedy drops off, it's between him, Rae, and Iggy. He's an academic and a politician. While he may not have gotten much done in his time as environment minister, he does have credibility there. He did great work with the clarity act. Even if he is Quebecois, he is mostly untainted by sponsorship.

Convention Prediction:
Dion's gonna have to do lots of smoozing in the first few days. He'll come into the convention about 50-100 delegates behind Kennedy, so he needs to pick up that many more than Kennedy early on to win. If he does pick up enough, then he will probably win. If not, then he will unfortunately finish in 4th. While he would probably win on a form of Condorcet voting, that's not how this thing is run.

Future:
If he wins, he becomes leader, and hopefully PM soon. If he doesn't win, then it depends who he endorses, and who actually wins. If he picks the winner, then I have no doubt that he will be a major figure in their eventual cabinet, since he is a very smart guy and will probably be a big part of whoever does win. If he picks wrong, then I would hope that the winner gives him a position anyways. He could probably be an admirable minister for nearly any portfolio.

Trudeau for Kennedy!

It's official. Justin Trudeau is endorsing Kennedy.

The son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau said yesterday that he believes the former Ontario cabinet minister offers the best chance for a genuine renewal of the party that will move it closer to grassroots members.

“To my mind, Gerard represents the best chance for creating genuine solutions to appeal to all Canadians,” Mr. Trudeau said in a telephone interview from Calgary.

Candidate Profiles: Joe Volpe

Part 4 of our 8 part series continues with Volpe.

Joe Volpe

He's got a strong handshake. I really don't care to mention anything more.

Convention Prediction:
Joe will come into the convention, complain about some fiendish plot against him by the LPC/Ignatieff/Anti-Immigrants/Anti-Italiant/Aliens from the planet Xenu, get his 3%, go to one of the frontrunners, who will reluctantly shake his hand, and then hopefully walk his way away from the party. Whoever he goes to will not want to shake his hand, but they know that Volpe will come with probably 95% of his supporters, so will be a big boost in terms of actual numbers. He will apparently also tell whoever he is supporting before the convention, so expect a lot of "Volpe" talk early on in the week as the news leaks out.

Future:
Hopefully, he will announce his departure from the Liberal party next Saturday. If not, he'll continue to run, continue to play corrupt, and be a nuisance for us all. I almost hope he picks the wrong guy to support, since then we won't feel tempted to give him a cabinet post. Otherwise, at least he keeps us entertained. Sigh...

Candidate Profiles: Ken Dryden

Continuing on in the series profiling the finalists, I now present my views on Ken Dryden.

Ken Dryden

Ken is actually the candidate I have had the longest talk with. I ran into him at SummerFling this year and had a long time chatting with him. I also had a fairly decent talk with him in his hospitality suite at the LPC(O) AGM last may. First off, he's probably the nicest candidate in the race. While some of the others may ask you what program you're in, he's the only one that actually seems to care. At LPC(O) he had a long chat with another UW Young Liberal member about law schools.

Having said that, he started off the race as a guy who could win by being "everyone's second choice". Unfortunately for him, he's not the first choice of too many people, and as it turned out, he's probably everyone's 4th choice. That would go well under some voting systems, but in our current one, it's not enough.

If this were 10 years ago, and Ken could speak french, he would make a much better candidate. He's a very bright man, and it's about time we had a former hockey player as a leader. As long as he learned enough to sidestep the "Habs vs. Leafs" question (well, at least to let the leaf fans off easy), that is.

For now, the only way I saw us electing Ken this time around was if we knew for sure we were going to lose the next election. Despite his long-windedness, I think he would have done well as leader of the opposition, as a good, respectable man to hold us until someone else came along in 3-4 years time. Not that I don't think he would have made a good PM, but I think he would be one of the people in this race who wouldn't get discouraged and bolt if we lost.

But he does have one thing going for him, it's that nobody doesn't like him. If there was a poll as to which candidates you would most want to sit around and talk with for a few hours, he would win it hands-down. And the Conservatives would look really cheap attacking the man who did so much for this country back in the 70s.

Convention Prediction:
I'm hoping that the Dryden crew comes in to convention dressed in full hockey garb, and they come out and have a good time. Dryden himself will be a big draw for whoever he ends up with, since everybody likes him. Maybe not as symbolic as Martha, and probably without the numbers of Volpe (coming tomorrow in our series), but I have a sense that a lot of his delegates will follow him.

Future:
What is Ken's future in the party? He's going to be too old to make another run at the leadership next time around, and his french won't improve enough to make him a serious candidate next time. If we can win again, he'd go well to go back into one of the social issue cabinet posts, so either back in childcare, or over to heritage, maybe. If we don't win, I could see him staying around for another term then retiring after that.

Candidate Reviews: Scott Brison

Up next in our candiate reviews series we have Scott.

Scott Brison

While I've never really met Scott, he is a very interesting candidate. I've never really had the chance to meet him (more than shaking his hand as he made his way around an event or listening to a short stump speech), but he is a good candidate. A turncoat from the tories, but by now, I think it's generally agreed that he's paid his dues in the party. He also happens to fall further to the right in the party.

Scott is still young, and has a long career ahead of him. He provides a good voice, willing to talk out about economic issues, and from his speech at LPC(O) to the youth, you know he knows stuff about that. He as well as Martha is another person who brings an interesting endorsement when he falls off: Since he is to the right side of the party, he would bring a good amount of credibility to Dion, Kennedy, or Rae. To Ignatieff, he brings an endorsement and shows that not everybody hates Iggy.

Convention Prediction:
Scott will come in with his group of people, party like crazy (since if there's one thing he's got far and away above the others is his and his group's youthful vigour), and enjoy themselves. He'll be well-placed for a future run at the leadership, since he's gained a lot of credibility this time around.

Future:
As I said, his time is not now, but it will be in the future. He's the youngest challenger, and he'll have to decide how he wants to play it. If the Liberals can take back power, then his best bet would be to secure himself some good cabinet positions, and come back as a star minister for the next leadership contest. If we can't win anything back, then maybe he could take a few years off and come back strong from some time away from parliament for the next leadership contest. Either way, he'll be a strong contender next time around.

Candidate reviews: Martha Hall-Findlay

Well, in just over one week (about a week and 4 hours, I think), I'll be off to the convention. Lots of stuff to finish up before heading out (since the Liberal party timed it nicely with end of term assignments and projects), but between now and next week I'll try to get some final impressions, maybe a prediction for how I think stuff will play out, and my final commentary on it all.

So for starters, let me go through my impression of the candidates, going from fewest delegates to most delegates.

Martha Hall-Findlay

Martha was the first candidate to declare, and the first candidate I actually had the chance to meet. Back last April, she came to the University of Waterloo before everything had become heated, and talked to our club. It was also officially the date that I joined the Liberal Party (after a hiatus of a few years due to laziness), and the real start of the Leadership race for me.

In that talk, she elaborated on her vision and ideas. My first impression was that she was a very bright individual with lots of really good ideas. She was bold, willing to propose topics of conversation that I knew most people did not want to touch. She had actual ideas for how to promote green energy. I had heard a bit about her beforehand, but did not see what a great person she actually was.

However, it was not all positive. Listening to her talk, I could definitely see her as a great minister, but I did not get very many "leader" vibes. She was still too novice for the post of the head of the party.

Throughout the campaign, she got pushed to the sidelines. From early on, it seemed like people really didn't give her much credit, and you could tell that she wasn't really ready for a big campaign. At the LPC(O) convention when the other candidates invited the Youth to their suites to talk to us, she didn't have a room planned and held her session in the loud and noisy lobby.

But that didn't stop her from still going out there and giving it her all. You have to respect her in that regard. Even after getting a pitiful 1% of the delegates from Super Weekend, she decided to hang in there. She's the last woman in the race, and that says a lot about her determination to stay in (although unfortunately it also says a lot about the state of women in politics and the Liberal Party as well).

So now, she will go into Super Weekend and everybody knows that she will be knocked off on the first ballot. I was personally hoping that she would have a bit more support, and then a large number of the ex-officio delegates would vote for her on the first ballot, as a show of support. In that scenario, she would gain enough to finish ahead of Volpe, for example, and then she could actually bow out of the race with even more dignity. I still believe that that would be the proper thing to do. However, her numbers are just a bit too much lower than the next person, and the race at the top is getting a bit too intense for me to see a lot of movement on that front.

Convention Prediction:
Martha goes in with her 38 delegates, 3 ex-officio, and does manage to pick up maybe 30-40 ex-officio voters who want to make a stand, and bows out respectfully on the first ballot with about 2% of the vote. I will not predict who she or anyone else will run to, but whoever it is will get a fairly significant endorsement, if not in physical delegates but in appearance.

Future:
While she may not win, she will truly be a star candidate in the next election wherever she runs. She is still quite young for a politician, and has a very promising career ahead of her. She may never make it to the leader's position, but I could definitely see her heading an environmental portfolio in the near future for whoever wins.

"Nomination" meeting

I just came back from the nomination meeting for Andrew Telegdi, meaning that we're into election mode already.

Now, some politicians are great speakers, motivationally inspiring, and make you very proud to be a Liberal. Telegdi isn't one of them. Most of his speech, I was cringing. Like when he blamed Alberta entirely for our greenhouse gas increases, and went off on large rants about citizenship.

Hopefully we'll eventually get a Liberal candidate for the riding which I'll be glad to call my MP. For now, I guess it could be worse.

Congrats to BC

Well, the Als came out for half a game of football, and BC played well. I thought Montreal was going to take this one, and if we'd played both halves like the second half it would have been very close. BC really seems to have a great football team, great D, great offence, and they definitely deserve the win.

Brunch with Ignatieff

Well, this morning I woke up early to go to a brunch fundraiser for Ignatieff in Cambridge [Youth get in free. Obviously I wouldn't actually want to pay to help his campaign]. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was going to keep a count of all of Ignatieff's contradictory remarks. And actually, he did not contradict himself once at all at the brunch!

However, that would be an accomplishment if he actually decided to show up to it. Apparently he's running a high fever, and so did not actually come out to the event. We had John McCallum speak instead, which was interesting, but I was looking forward to getting my picture with Iggy. Also, I think the Ignatieff camp should have either chosen a location that serves brunch or should have splurged a bit more, since the only food there were croissants, danishes, fruit, and cheese slices, along with coffee and juice. No hot food, just basically a light breakfast. They did have chocolate with Ignatieff's name on it, but it was quite disappointing overall.

"I'm not a person, I'm a website!"

Warren Kinsella came to the University of Waterloo today to give a speech about "Arts in the Media", and more specifically, about blogging. It was very nice to hear what he had to think about blogs, how they're popular, and why they actually matter. Hard to say how many people in the room were familiar with blogs, but hopefully this will encourage them to start checking them out. I know it took be a bit to get into reading them at the start, but now I can barely wake up in the morning without seeing what's new with Liblogs.

Afterwards, there was a nice reception where I unfortunately drew the wrong card, and so did not win a copy of Fury's Hour. But it was still nice to hang around with others, and find out there were other bloggers in Waterloo. I've also been invited to an Iggy fundraiser brunch on Sunday morning. Should be interesting. Chatting with some others, we decided the over/under on contradictions was 2.5 within the event, and 6.5 if you count contradictions with previous statements. If I remember, I'll try to keep track and see how close an estimate this was.

Poll results, Turner, and Graham

3 things to cover now:

There's a poll out pitting the Liberals, gasp, ahead of the conservatives nationally. While mid-term polls don't mean much, it's nice to know that we're not falling behind in our leaderless state. If the 2 parties can stay close through the new year, it will be interesting to see how the parties play it this winter. The tories will want to be extra careful not to fall unless if they're ahead, but then if the Tories are playing nice, the Liberals will have to be careful not to look opportunistic and throw down a non-disliked bill.

Garth had his press conference yesterday. I watched it. Not overly exciting overall. Basically, he wants to feel important, and promote his new website. Uh, no wait, I guess he actually wanted to promote HIS new website.

Finally, just after Garth's talk, I had to run out to go see Bill Graham on his way around town. He was gracious enough to come visit the University of Waterloo Young Liberals, give a speech, and talk to our club. We had a good turnout and most people seemed to be excited to get the big shot in the party come to our club. He is really a very knowledgeable individual, and at least once I heard someone ask him if he would consider running for leadership ;).

"Gerard Kennedy can understand Quebecois the most"

Alright, my translation isn't perfect, and it's not quite word for word, but that is the basic idea that I saw someone mention on TV. No, it wasn't some crazed Kennedy supporter spewing out random completely partisan rhetoric, or some wacko nutjob trying to be ironic with a statement. No, that line was said by a young man by the name of Justin Trudeau.

Take a bit to digest that. Okay, now let me but it in a bit more context.

This is from the current Trudeau interview today which Altar Boys alluded to earlier today. Basically, Trudeau was asked about the comparisons between Ignatieff and his dad. The basic facts from that were that at least with Pierre, whether you agreed with him or not, you knew where he stood on the issues. Ignatieff isn't so clear. You can really tell from the interview that Justin doesn't like that comparison at all.

Then the questions turned to the leadership race. He dismissed Ignatieff and Rae, seeing them too much as doing politics in the same way that it's been in the past, without any real change for the future. You see, one thing that Trudeau thinks we need (and perhaps a large part why he's on the renewal committee) is a new vision for the party, and a new way to do politics. He then said he's basically debating between Dion and Kennedy. He feels Dion has some vision and ideas, but is also slightly a member of the old guard.

Then he got on to Kennedy. This is when he started to get that smile in his eyes as he described Kennedy's real ideas for vision for the future, for renewal, and his strategies that will help move the party forward. He also said that Kennedy is mostly unknown in Quebec, but that in the end, he is really the one who understands people from Quebec the most.

Now, that is something that I do truly believe in, not just because I am a Kennedy supporter. I say that as someone who was born in Montreal and who lived over half my life in Quebec. Once Quebecois see Kennedy as the candidate with a real vision, with real ideas, and with a real way to move the party forward, they will like his as much as the rest of the country has.

*update: After some searching, the SRC website has the video, under the "nouvelles" section. The political parts are right near the end, and the article related to the interview can be found here.

*update 2: After a bit more watching the video, the better translation for the line was "Gerard Kennedy can understand best the real needs of the Quebecois". Also it appear that Liberal Outsider's got a YouTube video of it, if you want a direct link to the political part of it.

Go Als!

Well, congrats to the Alouettes and the Lions for advancing to the Grey Cup! Should be a good matchup. We'll see if Montreal can overcome the really tough middle half they had this year.

On another note, some people can take a loss with grace and charm. Some can't.

Ralph speaks

A few bloggers have made comments about Ralph's remarks, about the "only conservative bone in her body". I have to agree with Ralph's post-comments on this one. It was a joke. It was funny. Sure, it wasn't a roast of Belinda, but can he still not make jokes about others? I don't see the big deal about this is.

Also, Kennedy has an announcement on enterprise out which he made today at Ryerson. I wasn't there, but you can catch a few different viewpoints on the event thanks to Cherniak and Gavin Neil, of Politics (chiefly as seen from Toronto, Canada). It's nice to see a leadership candidate still go out and make announcements, which aren't just clarifications of his past statements.

Dems and Fundraising

Well, first off, congrats to the Democrats for not choking under the pressure! I was up late last night, and by last count, it's looking very good for them. Even my most optimistic prediction didn't have them actually winning the Senate, and not doing nearly so well in the house. Finally nice to see the Americans vote against Bush.

Also, since everyone else is doing it, the Kennedy campaign has set up a link to help out the delegates as well, which can be found here. So if you want to help me or another Kennedy delegate, then go and donate. If you want to help out Gerard, at this stage at the game this is by far the best way to do it.

Ekos poll: part 2

Unlike one blogger, I don't think Rae has this one sown up. I mean, page 14 of the report is enough to tell you that. As much as people like to say they like Rae as their second choice, when down to him or Iggy, it's a really tough choice.

If I wasn't so busy the next few days/weeks, I'd love to parse through everything in big detail, making my own conclusions. Unfortunately, I don't have that time, so here are some other points from this:
- Undecideds are very high for second/third choices. From that, we can't really extrapolate that 60% of Dion's supporters would go Rae if Dion dropped out. If those 39% follow Dion if he went to endorse Kennedy, for example, then that's a big swing.

- We can't equate the 2 tables of showing up and first ballot support, since I'm sure if you broke it down, of those who said they probably won't show up to the convention, probably 90% of them are also those who don't support their candidate anymore.

- However, very good news that Kennedy ranks highest among those who feel they will show and among those who still support him. We may not be the largest contingent, but we're sure as hell the most passionate ones.

- The lower contenders have much higher rates of undecided second choices than the top ones. 2 possible things we could read from that: they're keeping a tight lip or they're going to follow their leader. You'd think by now they'd have decided who to support, since they know their candidate won't win. By that, it's going to be big to get those endorsements, then.

- Even if Dion is a bit ahead in the "growth potential", when you count up to 3rd choice, you're adding errors together, so your MOE goes to about 4%, which when you actually count it up in percentage points, ends up being nearly the difference between Dion and Kennedy. Now, maybe my math might be off by a bit, but it's still very close between those 4 at the top. And when you factor in that you've got 30-40% undecided for 2nd and 3rd ballot support, there's a lot of delegates in play.

- I don't like how for "least favourite" they only seemed to ask people about 1 person. It should have been a "list everyone who you do not want to win". I'm pretty sure there are many people who said "Volpe" who might also not want Iggy or Rae to win.

That's my main take on it for now. Sure, the poll looks nice for Dion, but there's still way too much uncertainty. I think it's gonna be huge who the bottom 4 end up supporting. It's gonna be an intense time when we get down to 4 people. Somewhat interestingly, when we get to that point, and down to the last ballot, we're gonna see a lot of completely hammered Dion or Kennedy delegates, which could make for some interesting choices (hey, if Hedy Fry can get a vote in our riding when people are presumably sober, what will happen when the drunks get to voting?).

Exos poll

Well, everyone's all aflutter about the recent Ekos poll out today. There still seems to be a lot of people undecided about their second choice (38%), so hard to draw too many conclusions about how to vote strategically. It certainly wasn't a Bob Rae poll as someone speculated last night.

My take on it: We didn't really learn much we didn't know already. Lots of people don't like Iggy (23%). Lots don't like Rae (18%). Hardly anybody doesn't like Dion (3%) or Kennedy (2%). I'd still like to see the full poll numbers to get a real guage of everything, but for Dion, mentioning that 13% of his delegates may not show could be a big blow. If that is true, then he drops to 14-15%, and many people may not think of him as being so good (perhaps mistaking no-shows as a lack of ex-officio support).

All that this poll really tells us is that we're going to have an important vote when we get down to 4 people. It will most likely be Dion or Kennedy dropped, and by all indication, neither our supporters or theirs are fans of the top 2 guys, so I think there's a very good chance that whichever stays on will be able to surpass Rae, and have lots of momentum going into the final against Iggy. It's sure going to be interesting in 4 weeks.