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.