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.
4 comments:
Great Blog bud. I've been reading for days.
Personally I was 60% dion/40% kennedy/spot in my heart for Martha and desperately not able to support the balloon in Rae or blow up Iaq Ignatieff (and I don't care how good his reasoning was, i just couldn't go against the one thing that made my entire being shudder most in the last 5 yrs - the war in Iraq).
I thought Dion was the best chance to win for days, after the second choice poll numbers came out and it seems most people saw him as the least evil alternative to a couple of guys who had very hard core support of those wanting to back a winning pony.
I'm just down the road from you btw and live in Waterloo. Interesting that I found your blog of all things while searching for additional convention info.
Wow, i'm rambling. Damn the 3am. :-)
Dion only won because of a deal - face it.
I wish him luck and I will support him.
If Kennedy plans to run again he better watch out for Martha Hall Findlay.
The Iggy attacks now that it's over are childish and tiresome. Considering all the attempts to destroy him he did really well and no one can deny that.
Kennedy was a fool - if he'd tried to get more press for "himself" instead of Justin Trudeau (which a lot of people resented) then he might have had a different result.
Good on Dion, I'm 100% behind him and feel he has the makings of a great leader -- altho he may be too honest. Reading your tales has me shaking my head a little. I too was at the convention and backed Bob. I know what his baggage is and that some people have strong and valid reasons why they couldn't support him. But when MP James Moore essentially admitted that it was the Conservatives planting the anti-bob buttons and books around the hall, it just made me think about all you types who bought into it. Who had little personal experience to actually validate a reason for not backing Bob. The tories and NdP actually feared Bob the most. It's proven by their actions and poll after poll. If you want to argue that Bob as leader would be 95% only to win an election and not revitalize the party, i could agree with you. That we can still win with another leader I'd agree with you again. But these post-vote cheap shots are really lame. But I guess you've still got a lot of learning to do.
Looking at it afterwards, Bob does start to seem like a better candidate, but there's still a big chance that we would lose lots more seats in Ontario with him at the helm. Not guaranteed, and a lot of polls don't back those stats, but it's risky (same with a large reason why we didn't go for Iggy. He may have a good chance to win, but also had a good chance to lose).
Personally, I wasn't willing to take that risk. It would take way too much effort to try to defend Bob's time in Ontario that I don't think we would be able to get any message out to people.
I also wouldn't put too much stock into who the Cons say they want to face most. I have a feeling they'd be just as happy to face Bob as anyone else. Heck, if passing around a few pins could convince us not to vote for him, how could we convince an electorate to?
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