End of the term

Well, I've finished my term, and I must say, it was jammed full of good politics. This was my first real foray into blogging, and I must say it's not as easy as you'd expect. Continually coming up with commentary isn't overly easy to do, especially when not much goes on.

But for now, my term is officially over, and we enter the holiday break. Blogging I'm sure will be sporadic over that time. And when I get back to the habit in the Winter, I may also bring a more American perspective, as I'll be working in Northern California. How will all the craziness that I'm sure we'll see be covered down there? We'll just have to wait and see.

But for now, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukkah, a Festive Festivus, and a good time for whatever other holidays you may celebrate!

Conservatives continue pro-choice stand

...well, pro-choice on the wheat board, at least, by firing the president, Adrian Measner today. I may not be a farmer, but from what it sounds like, the majority of farmers like the board, and want to keep it. Could the Liberals pick up some rural votes by being pro-wheat board?

In other news, Harper said that taxing income trusts has been his hardest decision so far. Nice of him to admit that, although there was some tough competition for the title: getting rid of the Status of Women, not putting out an environmental platform, cutting back the Liberals funding for research and education, and the wheat board decision above were all tough choices to make. Personally, I'd say his toughest choice was the only one he got right. Maybe he should have thought harder on some of the others.

Campaign team

Well, Dion officially announced his new campaign team today, putting Bob and Scott on the platform, Martha to test drive the policies, and Gerard to run the rest of the campaign (and giving each a snazzy new title to put on their resumes). I like not putting Rae as the only guy on the platform, to balance it out with Brison, since then at least we won't be attacked by the Cons for putting out an "NDP Platform". And Brison is the type of guy who you want writing that document. Gerard being the main go-to guy for the election is a good choice as well, which will prime him to taking over a top spot in cabinet if we win.

With a team like this, it should be fun following the next campaign!

A leaner, meaner house

Well, I'm not sure if the house is actually leaner than before, but according to some, it's meaner.

Now I unfortunately have been a bit busy this term with school to be able to watch too much Question Period, but it does seem pretty bad. I agree that the standing ovations have gotten a bit ridiculous ("Tax cuts are good! Yay! Yay!" [standing ovation]), but it does add some fun. Heck, we should start up a drinking game:

Take a shot whenever the Conservatives directly blame the Liberals for something, or talk about the Liberals "13 years of incompetence" [but be careful to only include direct quotations, otherwise we'll have too much alcohol poisoning]

Take a shot whenever the conservatives get a standing ovation

Take a shot for when we have 3 questions in a row about the exact same topic

Take a shot for whenever you can hear actual heckling words through the CPAC feed

Take a shot whenever Milliken has to calm everyone down [bonus shot when they burst out laughing at his comment]

That should get you good and drunk, so as to make the "tabling of documents" which usually follows interesting ("I love you stander order 12!").

But now that we can enjoy the raucousness, is it really impeding women from getting in to parliament? Perhaps a bit, but no matter how much we clean it up, it will never get to the point of being civil enough for a normal person watching to not think that these people are crazy. I think the better way to encourage more women to go would be to try to emphasize the 90% of the day where people aren't yelling at each other. I think if people saw that, and realized that QP was only a small part of the parliamentarian day, we would see more women get involved.

Inconveniant greenhouse gases

In honour of Harper's declaration about the "so-called greenhouse gases", I decided to watch "An Inconveniant Truth", the Al Gore movie, tonight. I must say, a great film. I mean, everyone [except a few so-called right wingers] knows about Global Warming, but to see the numbers, the figures, the demos there, it really makes you think.

I would have liked a few more ideas how we can actually reduce our emissions, not just the 5 minute wrap-job at the end. However, still a movie that should be a must-watch for anyone even partly interested in the environment (especially anyone who calls themselves a "Minister of the Environment").

Let the campaign season begin!

Well, with Harper's press conference today, following from his open caucus session yesterday, we're now basically into campaign season. As much as both sides say they don't want an election, I think everyone's thinking that we'll have one pretty soon after we're back from the Holidays.

But until we actually get that campaign, we've got senate reform! and the upcoming cabinet shuffle to talk about. It's gonna be tough for Steve to figure out a way to arrange his Cabinet without admitting the complete failure on the environment. They need to try to send a message of actual policy and change on the environment without admitting their complete failure so far. It's a tough sell, and I think when it does come down, we'll have to try to hammer hard on it. I don't think the environment is the best thing for us to be fighting on, but it seems to be working so far, so we've got to push hard on it.

"Electing" Senators

I will say that I prefer Harper bringing this forward than the sham of a vote that Klein has had a few times in the past. At least this way it's a real organized system, not one province trying to push their own agenda. However, there are some problems:

1. As I read in a few places, and as people like Romeo Dallaire has stated, if we want to change the Senate, we should do it properly and legally. If you want to change stuff with the Senate, we should do it all at once, and have real talks and discussions about what it all accomplishes.

2. Who puts the names forward, and how does the vote run? If it's just anyone who can put their name forward, and everyone just votes for their first number of choices, then I'm all for it, 100%. In that case, we'll see 15 Conservatives run in Alberta, and only 1-2 Liberals. So in that case, the Liberals should easily win it, and every Senator from Alberta will be Liberal.

Now, I wouldn't mind actually having discussions about Senate reform, since it is not right that BC's only got 2 more Senators than PEI, but just doing little patchwork stuff here and there, where we would end up with multiple classes of Senators, and the Senators would then have to start worrying about re-election. I do think the Senate needs changes, but if we do change it, let's actually change it, and not just pass bills that aren't binding at all.

Election speculation

Will the government fall over Afghanistan?

I don't think so. For one, as much as us Liberals are vocal about going into an election right away, we'd be in a terrible spot if we did. We have no money. Heck, it'll take us a few months to raise enough to pay off campaign debts, so we're in no rush for one. Especially I think since we won't keep this big boost from the convention for too much longer (hopefully it will stick around, but I don't think we'll stay around 40 for too long).

So when will we have the election? Ideally I think we'd like to go in the Fall, but with the Ontario election that rules out that one. So that means we either have one pre-budget this winter, post-budget in the spring, or wait until next Winter. Post-budget could be tough, since I can't see how the conservatives won't give us an incredibly nice budget, filled with tax cuts and lots of spending promises, under the assumption that they'll never have to actually fulfill them. Pre-budget is a possibility, but that hearkens back to the argument I posted at the top of the post, about money and readiness.

So that leaves next winter. Could we really let the conservatives stay in power for 2 full years before toppling them, especially after Dion's rallying cry for an election at the end of the leadership contest? Honestly, I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. It would certainly give people more chance to get to know Dion, and would give the Cons more chances to screw up, but it also gives them longer to fix their mistakes, and if they keep without too much trouble for a full year without an ongoing Liberal contest eating up media, could be trouble. I think it's a high risk, high-reward situation to wait that long. Either people will get really pissed off how they're governing and welcome us back with open arms, or people will actually get used to the "new government" and not mind them in power.

So is it worth the risk? I think it could probably be, but I don't see the people higher up taking that chance. I have a feeling that we'll be so trigger happy and probably a bit blinded that we'll rush into an election late this year, maybe mid-May. Will it work? Only time will tell, but it won't be easy.

Convention vs. OMOV

Well, one word that I keep hearing from the convention is that by shooting down OMOV, we ruined a chance at renewal. I say that's a bad viewpoint.

First off, I'm not out there to bash one member one vote systems. I do think that they are a decent system, and we definitely need to give it a serious look. I know not everyone can shell out the 1000 bucks for the delegate fees at the convention, and until we actually have a real way to fundraise for stuff like this, it's too steep for many people.

Now on to why we did the right thing by not jumping into this new system:

1. Conventions are fun, and are a great thing to have. We all saw the poll numbers from Sunday. I haven't seen the Alberta PC polls recently, but I seriously doubt they got a big jump in numbers are their vote, and they had 2 weekends of results. And anyone who went to the convention will say that was one of the best times they've had in a long time.

2. Some may argue with me about this, but OMOV we lose the backroom dealing. Now, to some, this is a great thing, but I think it takes the leader almost another step away from people. The anticipation of figuring out where a leadership candidate will turn to, th scene of them walking across the floor, and all the smoozing between leaders makes it better. I like to know where the guy I likes will go, since if I trust the man enough to think they'd make a good leader, I don't mind knowing who he thinks the next best leader would be. Even if not many Brison or Dryden delegates followed him to Rae, I'm sure a few more did than if he didn't let them know of his choice.

3. OMOV won't actually bring anyone else out to vote who wouldn't have normally. Honestly, does anyone actually believe that some people decided not to vote because they're opposed to the delegated system? If you're anywhat active in the party, you did all you could to get yourself or people you know elected as a delegate. And if you're not involved, then just bringing in a different voting system won't get your more involved, except to possibly vote. But if we just brought in someone to vote, is that actually worth it? This is more a rant in finding ways to get others involved, but I don't think people will suddenly do more with the party just because we have OMOV. I signed up a half-dozen people to vote for me to get me to go as a delegate. Would I still have signed them up without the reward of a delegate spot?

4. OMOV isn't the only form of renewal. It is a form of renewal, but is it worth pushing it in just for the sake of "renewal"? Pushing ahead something just because it's new is no different than changing leaders and calling ourselves a new party. The constitution, now there's a form of renewal. We need to change the way the party operates, but we need to do so in a smart way.

5. As a side point of 4, we shouldn't try to slip this behind people when caught up in leadership. Just like the dump idea of trying to hold policy sessions this time around, everyone knew it was a Leadership convention, even if we tried to stick the "biennial" label on it (and just like the Conservatives being the Alliance in drag, not really a PC/Alliance party). Even the constitution workshop only had 600 or so people out of 5000 who could have gone. Did people actually know what they were voting on? I bet if you asked people to describe the amendment, most wouldn't even know about the points system involved. Wait until we can actually concentrate on it at the next biennial.

6. If the Alberta PC race is any indication, OMOV may bring in catchy campaign songs.

As I said, OMOV is a new way of doing things. I think we need to worry more about getting people involved, and getting more people out, than about worrying about how we pick our leader once every 10 years (on average). However, I do think we need changes before the next leadership vote. Personally, I have not looked enough into it, but I think the best would be to have our leader picked 50% based on a form of OMOV and 50% based on the delegate results. This keeps the usefulness of a convention (since if we went strictly OMOV holding a convention would look pretty stupid), but while still giving everyone a say. Again, maybe some details need to be figured out, but let's actually sit down and talk about it. Figure out how to guarantee an amount of Youth, Women, and Seniors participation, but actually have a talk about it. I think if we spend some time, we can find a system that appeals to people, but even lots of OMOV supporters didn't like this last one.

Back to real life...

Well, apparently there's stuff going on that's not convention related. Soon I should get on to that, but I just wanted to get all my final thoughts on the convention out of the way first, then settle back into my normal routine a bit before heading back to normal blogging.

I will say that the new controversy over whether we should whip our people into voting against the con SSM bill is interesting. As much as I'd love to think everyone should oppose reopening the debate, I'm not sure if we'll manage that. [on a side note, I've been thinking for a while that the best way for Harper himself to play this would be to oppose his own motion. It would be pure political genius for him to show that he's not a crazy maniacal doofus]

So, should we force people to vote our way or kick them out? I think it comes down to politics. Whipping everyone would send a good message that we're a united party and we are the party that will defend everyone's rights. But then again, we have to face the facts that we could lose some numbers on this.

I would say that the best thing to do would be to tell people that if you don't want SSM, too bad, it's already here, and there's no use in bringing it up again. In that case, simply abstain from the vote and be done with it. In an ideal case we should try to get all progressives running in the next election, but I'm not about to throw away a significant percentage of our MPs over this.

Second, Dion being a french citizen. Who cares? If anything this will bring up the much-needed debate as to how much dual citizenry we should allow. This obviously won't affect him in any way in decision making, so if this is the best attack the cons can come up with, I think we picked a great leader last weekend.

Third, I should say congratulation to Stelmach on his win in Alberta. There was a great leadership race: no campaign financing rules, no real membership rules, people being given pre-paid, pre-signed cards to vote with. And did it generate nearly as much interest as the Liberal Leadership convention did? No. Another reason why OMOV failed last week at the constitution plenary.

John Lennard

Read this post.

A great first step towards party unity. We must put aside our past criticisms of everyone, and come together. There was a lot of good reasons why the top 4 contenders had 20-30% support each. The first step is trusting the reasons why everyone else made the choice they did, join together, and put aside the negatives from the campaign. Good on you, John, for realizing that on the floor. Hopefully the rest of us will soon follow you to doing that.

What if...

Well, with the results behind us, I thought it would be interesting to see how it could have ended up differently based on various rumours or possibilities:

1. Kennedy stays on for ballot 3

Well, the most obvious what-if situation is what would happen if Gerard decided to stick it out for another ballot. Barring any strategic voting (which I will get to later), we didn't have enough support coming to us to overcome Dion. Then Kennedy bows out on ballot 3 instead of 2. Would he still be able to deliver his support to Dion? I would tend to think so. As I said before, Kennedy's people went to Dion because we generally liked him more than Iggy or Rae. It may not have been as big, and maybe Dion would have been a couple points behind Iggy at that point instead of a few up. It would have made the final ballot closer, but I think Dion would have still won it.

2. Brison goes Iggy Friday night

Well, according to my sources inside the Iggy camp, Brison was going to go Iggy. They had the rally set up, then Scott backed out and decided to wait for first round results.

Now, I'm pretty sure very few Brison people went Rae, but I think had he gone Iggy, they would have been much more likely to follow him there. It would mean that Iggy would get a better bump after the first ballot, but it might also mean that a few less of those Brison delegates would have gone GK or Dion. GK gained 30 votes, Dion gained 120. Would it have been enough to keep Kennedy close enough to Dion to make him decide to stay around? It might have, but I'm not sure what his split of people were. I don't know what Gerard's cutoff was (I think we could have made up 50-60 from Dryden's people, but not much more).

3. Dryden declares for Kennedy instead of Rae

I could also have the opposite, where Dryden declares for Dion, but all that would have done is make Gerard walk over with Dryden, and probably give even more momentum to Dion.

As for Dryden going Kennedy, obviously GK couldn't have dropped off the ballot then, and we go into the ever crucial ballot 3. As I said above, I think we could have had a net gain of 50-60 from Dryden, maybe even a few more if he declared, but alone it wouldn't have been enough. It would have made us all even more devastated, probably, but hard to say if it would have affected anything in the end.

4. Strategic voting

Rumours out of the Iggy camp had them much more worried about Stephane than Gerard, so what if they decided to give the Kennedy camp a few votes? This would probably be if Gerard had stayed on, since I don't think they would have gone en masse before ballot 2. This would have ensured that Kennedy is ahead of Dion, especially with Dryden's delegates going more towards us as well ("Ken, tear down this ribbon between the boxes").

Then Dion's folks have to pick. Assuming Dion declared for Kennedy, I think we would have picked up a large number of his people. Would we get enough to pass Rae? I think we could have. But then it's much closer, and Iggy would have a bit more. If the second last ballot had Iggy at 40, Kennedy at 33, and Rae at 27, could we have stolen enough of Rae's delegates to win? It would certainly have been an intense final ballot. Iggy managed to make it up to 45% against Dion, could he do better against Kennedy?

5. Plane from Vancouver not cancelled / Rae doesn't challenge AB results

2 rumours from inside the Kennedy campaign has the red eye from Vancouver with a dozen delegates for Kennedy on it cancelled due to weather. We also lost 17 delegates in Alberta due to out of riding rules (they're not allowed people who don't live in the riding to run). Now, I know other camps probably had a few people who missed out for various reasons (for example, I think Dion had a few people who were trucked off with food poisoning), but these would have been big ones.

Had one or the other not happened, then Kennedy would have been about 10-15 votes ahead of Dion after the first night. Dion still picked up about 90 people more than we did on day 2, but some of those may have been following the momentum. Even if Dion passed us, we would have been closer, bringing us to the "Kennedy stays on ballot" from the top. But if we were closer, maybe Ken would have come our way (the "Dryden to Kennedy" section). With both of the situations not happening, we may even have stayed ahead of Dion after the second ballot.

6. Rae declares for Iggy before the last ballot

The last ballot was 55-45. Would Rae's people have followed him if he himself buried the hatched and shook Iggy's hand before the vote? You've got to think at least a few people would have been swayed. It was only about 200 votes difference between Iggy and Rae. An Iggy-Rae team would definitely made Iggy seem better, since at least it's not just an "Ignatieff against the world" feeling (even if Brison did go to Iggy in the end).

And I'm sure there are a lot of other scenarios that would have been interesting as well (Dryden to Iggy would have given him a good boost, for example). But what to make of this all? Well, to me, it seems to make about as much sense and it's just as easy to predict what would have happened after it's all done than it was to try to predict it all before we started.

Convention notes

A few quick points about the convention:

-The speeches by the former PMs were great.

-Parties were fine, except that none except Iggy was rich enough for free-flowing booze. Because of that, I wasn't wasted any evening this weekend, which was disappointing.

-We all chant about a "party united" now, but I still think it will take a bit of time for us to get to that point. It's only natural that those of us who put a lot of time into the guy (or girl) we thought was the right one to lead the party will take a bit of time to react. I personally couldn't reach up the courage to do much cheering for Dion, or even do anything more than wear the scarf. So for those getting a little angry at Antonio, I would say give it some time. It will take us at least until after the holidays to stop thinking in "Iggy vs Dion" terms, or in terms of any candidate. Dion's done a great job reaching out (meeting with the candidates yesterday, giving Iggy the second question today), but it will take a bit of time for everyone to get back on the same train again. It's only natural after a leadership convention, especially one as close as this one.

-Coverage on TV is always something different from coverage from the floor. It felt weird, being my first real convention, not following politics with the running commentary. I kept thinking that during the pause in voting I would hear Peter Mansbridge in my head start analyzing what was just said. It was nice to get that isolation. That being said, I didn't manage to see Kennedy start his walk over to Dion, since there was mad panic and rush around everywhere already. I'd like to see some parts to see how it all looked on TV (especially Kennedy's speech from Friday, and a bit more from the convention floor on Saturday, as well as some of Kennedy's post-mortem speeches), so if anyone can get them on youtube, I'd love to see what it all looked like.

-I felt like I was in the stone age compared to everyone else, since I didn't have a cell phone. I almost felt like I should head out to a store and get one, just to get in on the rush. However, spending a couple hours a day text messaging can't be good for you, so it was nice to be a bit isolated.

-I really still don't want to get back to finishing my work today that I would have been doing last week.

-It was crazy on the convention floor, especially right after a candidate dropped off. For next time, I would say there should be a 10 minute grace period after a candidate drops off where nobody should be allowed to talk to the supporters from that camp. I know it was tough on me and many others when we just learned we weren't going to win, and the first thing anyone else has to say to us is, "Do you have any questions about Stephane Dion's policies?"

-In retrospect, I tended to always hang around the same few people (mostly the Calgary folk I knew). It would have been nice to actually meet a few others, including the blogging folk (who I already feel somewhat like I knew). Next time I'll have to make another effort to meet up with more people, chat with everyone, and get around a bit more. I don't do well at going up to random people (probably from the computer scientist in me).

-I also should probably have tried to get more pictures, especially of me with politicians. The only pictures of me with people are with Kennedy and Trudeau (at separate times), up in Dryden's suite. It would have been nice to finally meet up with Ignatieff, Rae, or Dion, since I've never really met up with them or even seen them talk up close. For me, it was just too tough to try to decide whether it was better to have my tambourine and placard or whether I should try to have my camera out in case if someone big came close.

-And again, it would have been nice to wander around time at some point. After it was done Saturday I did walk around Rue Ste. Catherine with others finding a restaurant, but otherwise, I didn't go anywhere in Montreal that wasn't between convention parties. I have already been there (having lived just off the island until I was 11), but about the only "Montreal" experience was ordering my breakfast in french ("Un muffin anglais").

That seems to be most of the points I have for now. It was a great time overall, filled with lots of excitement, me nearly coming to tears when I didn't hear Kennedy's name going on to the next ballot, and lots of stuff going on all the time. Can't wait for the next one ;)

Candidate recap

I won't post my full thoughts now, now that I'm back at home after a long train ride (quite nice. Had a good, long chat with some delegates from Etobicoke, who seemed to be part of Judy Sgro's undeclared party of people. Very nice people, and made the ride much more interesting on the way back). Tomorrow, I will probably give more details about the convention or other stuff, but for now, I feel more like doing a short recap of the candidates, what happened to them, and what my predictions were (I'm not expecting myself to be right too much).

Martha Hall-Findlay: If anyone can be declared a winner (apart from Dion), it's definitely Martha. She got 2.7% of the vote. She supported the winner, and someone she really agreed with and respected. She's always mentioned up there with Gerard as the big backers, and I think she'll be given something which she should knock out of the park, and be one of the big candidates for the next time we have one of these things. I can guarantee if she runs again, she'll get more than 2.7% of the vote.


Scott Brison: Apparently he was ready to go Iggy, maybe even before his speech, but then decided to wait for the vote. He went Rae. None of his supporters did. Everyone I talked to lost a lot of respect for him. He just seemed to be an opportunistic person with the move, and I think if anyone can be declaed a loser, it's him. He lost a lot of fans this weekend, and isn't looking nearly as well for another leadership run. Had he simply gone to Iggy, Dion, or even Kennedy, we would still respect him for going with the guy he actually agreed with on a few points.

Joe Volpe: He came out, and withdrew on day one. He was then always positioned in photo-ops right behind whoever was the focus. He delivered his delegates to Bob, then we didn't hear from him the rest of the way. The "Zombies for Volpe, Rae" pins seemed to be already made, so it seems to show that at least some people knew about it, but it would be fun if we eventually see "Zombies for Dion", "Zombies for Kennedy", "Zombies for Hall-Findlay" making the rounds.

Ken Dryden: He decided to stay on an extra ballot. He unfortunately went down in vote for it, then went to Bob. I had predicted a large number of people would follow him. I obviously didn't think he would go Bob at all. Too bad for him, and as with Brison, I think a lot of his supporters were shocked by the decision. I'd heard him going to everyone else, but never to Rae. He lost a bit of respect with the move, I think.

Gerard Kennedy: He didn't win. In my last moments, even until Friday night's results, I thought Gerard could win. Even after we were a few votes behind on the first ballot, I thought we would be able to pick up more than Stephane did. Perhaps in the next few days I'll mention some "retrospective hypothetical" questions that people are discussing how stuff would change, but this just wasn't Kennedy's time. We thought he would have a bit more appeal, but we just didn't grow enough early to make it. He was the kingmaker for Dion, and I think he's set himself up for the next leadership race, although hopefully all us Gerard folk don't start thinking Martin-like and undermining Dion. We all voted for him. We'll worry about the next leadership race when it comes around, after a few Dion majorities, I hope.

Bob Rae: What did we prove at this convention? People don't seem to like Rae. He picked up both Dryden and Brison's support, but probably only got a handful of delegates between them. This showed it takes more than some backroom heav-hitters to win a campaign. I had thought he would pick up a bit more support, but it didn't end up that way.

Michael Ignatieff: Too low on the first ballot to win. Lost the support of Brison, which would have changed things. Kennedy's people proved they really didn't like him. Thus, he didn't win. We didn't want to take a chance on him (and hopefully the Iggy folk in the next few days will try to get over him, and be proud of Stephane).


Stephane Dion: He won. It turned out that he had much more ex-officio support than expected, and took the sails out of Kennedy. As much as people play on the 2 votes on ballot 1, it was the fact that he picked up 120 votes to Kennedy's 30 after the first ballot that did Kennedy in. Had we been a couple votes up on them instead of them on us, I don't think it would have been a big deal. In fact, it may have made Dion's momentum even stronger, since he would be the only guy to change spots in the race as well. I can say that he didn't get 91% of Gerard's delegates because we were loyal to Gerard, he got 91% because we all liked Stephane second best.

Go Dion!

Well, too bad GKL didn't make it to the last ballot, but we ran a great campaign, and I think everyone is proud of what we did.

But now, it's not about GK or Iggy or any other candidate, it's about Dion now, and rallying behind him as our new leader. We need to prepare for the next election, and join together to win. More analysis will follow over the next few days.

Day 3

Well, Day 3 is done, and the results of the first ballot are in. Kennedy's practically tied with Dion (2 votes), and with his great performance tonight, combined with Dion's less than stellar one, hopefully we'll be able to pick up a few. It's gonna be a long day tomorrow, with the only dropout being Volpe, now a part of that ever popular in Ontario Volpe/Rae ticket ("now featuring the only politician in Ontario less liked than Rae"). I can't wait for the morning, although I wish it came a bit later.

Day 3: before the madness

Well, I don't imagine I'll have too much time tonight and tomorrow to blog, so we'll get in an extra post now.

Looking forward to seeing the delegate counts coming in. I've heard Kennedy's a solid 3rd in turnout, but nobody seems to know the exact numbers.

It should also be interesting to hear the speeches tonight. It's always better to hear them live, so you get a real impression (and not have the simultaneous translation annoying you). Starts at 4:45 or so, so expect a big cheer for Martha at the start, then expect everyone to go in for supper around the time Volpe gets up to speak. The big 4 are at the end, so they'll probably be starting at 6ish.

And then we have the ever-important parties tonight, where we get the last chance to court delegates. Everyone should be out in full force tonight, getting out last chance to woo other delegates away. Then it'll get even better once they release the numbers, as that will really be the first actual numbers we get, that will tell how the ex-officios declared, and should give us a clue for the weekend. My prediction: that clue will be wrong, and the real way it will play out will depend on the second ballot, once the bottom few people drop off.

Day 2

Well, 2 days down, and sometimes it feels like I barely got here, sometimes it feels like I've been here a week.

Today we had some great spontaneous supports of enthusiasm for all the candidates. Kennedy's got by far the most diverse collection of cheers, and we're going strong. Iggy's got a lot of people (but I seriously doubt this "1000 people" number you hear them try to quote is close to accurate.

Otherwise, nice to see that the new constitution passed and OMOV failed. I personally like the delegated system, and think that it's much better than OMOV.

And Paul's ceremony tonight wasn't bad. Nice to see that we didn'd decide to do every musician from the rest of the country, and it actually made it seem like Paul actually did stuff in his time (although our "enthusiasm" for the environment still seems a bit weird, definitely as well as the Elizabeth May "endorsement").

And in hospitality suites, Iggy's had the most free-flowing alcohol, but the Alberta delegation was pretty nice as well (Mmm, beef). Dion's seemed to be going well, with Trudeau and Holland working the floor for the parts we were there. Tonight's the big voting night, and when it all comes to a semi-end. The hospitality suites will be crazy, especially once numbers are released. Gonna be so good...