The End of the Second Period: The NDP Leadership Race

So while Canadians sit around the table and contemplate good cheer and the year that passed us by, I’ve got my eyes firmly fixed to the NDP leadership race.

Save your pity.

This race is fun to watch. The sheer number of contenders is always enjoyable, albeit frustrating at times. Even with Robert Chisholm’s dropping-out this past week, eight fighters still remain. That’s a whole lot of talent (currently being wasted, if you ask me.) The Francophone question is also interesting. Never before has bilingualism been so important in a leadership race. One of the best themes is the diversity of the candidates - and the sheer disappointment that has rung out thus far.

I think we all regaled at this in the beginning, but it’s worth remembering that we have two - count ‘em, two - women running, a prominent Cree MP, and a Sikh. That’s pretty freaking cool.

But, barring some sort of ominious-sounding leadership council, one has to come out as the winner.

So what can we expect in the coming months?

The Road Ahead

Expect the candidates to come back from the holiday with a more polished message, some more substantive policy and a more natural approach. There’s no doubt that, thus far, the campaigns have been making it up as they go along. Nobody was prepared for the race, and nobody had the on-the-ground organizing required to jump into the game ready. This Christmas break allows the some breathing room - with neither the House sitting nor any important leadership events - to get together a more cohesive strategy.

We’re also just a month away from a slew of debates - four in five weeks - that should help flesh out top/bottom tier candidates. If Brian Topp can’t stand out, he’s in trouble. If Peggy Nash can’t offer policy and convince us that her French is good enough, she’ll languish. If Mulcair can’t make himself acknowledged, then he’ll get elbowed out by other candidates.

Anyone But Tom?

There has been much hay made around former NDP press secretary Ian Capstick’s assertion that Brian Topp is thinking about dropping out of the race. He later had to clarify the bit by saying that it was merely a theory and that he has no information to that effect.

Myself and David Akin got into a bit of a debate last night regarding who constituted the top/bottom tiers (I’ll get to that later) that centered around this post. In it, he speculates on the viability of getting a plot afoot to scuttle one front-runner. In another post, Akin also addresses this devilish conspiracy, citing Capstick as an ‘NDP insider.’ This not strictly true. While Capstick may be privy to some insider info, he’s no longer in the upper echelons of the party, nor does he profess to be. I’m skeptical that any campaign would let slip their true ambitions to him (he’s a TV pundit, after all.)

To give Akin credit, he quoted Capstick’s clarifiction in his December 22nd post. However, he proceeded to cite Capstick’s ‘theory’ again in his post the next day, sans caveat.

Capstick was obviously speaking in hypotheticals. I don’t believe either Topp or Saganash will drop out. Even if they do, it is much too early for them to be even contemplating it. No, Capstick made an off-the-cuff comment with no basis from any of the campaigns. 

It’s also worth noting that there really aren’t any ‘Anyone-but-Mulcair’ candidates. While some in the party are not fond of his normally hot-headed style (that has magically cooled in this race) there isn’t - to my knowledge - an organized campaign against him. I’ve been told that Saganash is no big fan of Tom, and I’m sure that there’s no love lost between he and Brian. That said, to suggest that the candidates would conspire to block him - or, rather, that the other candidates actually believe he’s in first place - is unfounded.

And certainly, even if Topp truly hated Tom, dropping out would likely help Tom’s chances. Considering Brian is the only other viable bilingual candidate, much of his support may well drift towards Tom - not Peggy, as the theory goes.
 

Musical Tiers?

This was the subject of much of mine and Akin’s discussion. You can follow it here;
(Note: I quite like David Akin. Any snarky rage implied in my tweets was due to it being 2:30am and me being allergic to my parent’s place. Merry Christm-ACHOO.)

Based on his post, Akin’s tiers look like this; (The ordering within the tiers is my own)
 
Top
  1. Mulcair
  2. Nash
  3. Dewar
Middle
  1. Saganash
  2. Topp
Bottom
  1. Cullen
  2. Ashton
  3. Singh
Okay, I take issue with this for multiple reasons.
 
Dewar
Paul’s support is greatly overstated. His French is sub-par (at best) and he has failed to show any significant institutional support outside of the Manitoba NDP. That’s not good, considering he’s a seasoned MP. That said, he’s a lot stronger than he was a month ago and while I think he’ll be picked off very early in the voting (if he makes it that far) - that’s a shade better than my initial prediction for him, which was that he would drop out early.

Mulcair
Tom’s campaign should be evaluated not on his name recognition (which he has in spades) or his endorsements from greenhorn MPs, but rather in his ability to sign up members and engage the existing base. As I’ve stated many times, I don’t believe he’s proven that. I think he’s showing it a bit more in recent weeks, and I do think he ought to be considered ‘top-tier’ I really think Mulcair is going to flounder once the other candidates make their names more known. There’s no way Mulcair can win this race on what he has now, unless the other candidates continue to shoot themselves in the feet.
 
Nash
Peggy is straddling top-tier. Her ground-game is great, and I see hints of her cobbling together  real cross-Canada support. But, again, she’s lacking substance. And, as a candidate, she’s not been impressive so far. If she failed to carve a real niche for herself in the economics debate - given that she was the finance critic - then I have little confidence that she’ll make a splash in the next few debates.

Nevermind that some activists are actually complaining about her performances at some townhalls. That’s not good at all.

Let’s keep in mind, that while Nash might have a massive presence on social media, she has virtually no impact on the traditional media. Her “policies” have not garnered any column inches and the membership still has very little information to go on with her.

Topp
Brian’s campaign was strong out of the gates and now needs to renew itself if he wants to stay out front. His institutional power in B.C. is still a force to be reckoned with. He shows considerable strength Ontario and Quebec. He has a presence, to a lesser extent, in the other provinces. However, his recent designations as less than top-tier are because of two things - the quietness of his campaign in recent weeks and the bogus polling data that puts him in the back of the pack. These two are related - if he doesn’t start to pull out the big guns and get some national airtime, he has no hope of winning this race. Simply gracing Power and Politics or The Daily Brief is not good enough.

There’s no doubt he’ll have the money to do some real advertising (online and broadcast) and I wonder if his campaign is just waiting until after the Christmas slump to really unleash the full campaign. If there really is nothing more to Brian’s strategy other than rolling out endorsements every month and doing a meet-and-greet tour, he may as well pack it in now.

Saganash
Romeo has no shot at this race. I’m still utterly befuddled as to why Akin picked him as middle-to-top tier. He writes,

As I said, I’m piecing this snapshot together from sources who will not go on-the-record and are from  different campaigns and who are providing me information that needs a bit of deduction. So while I’m reasonably confident about this middle tier, if there were just two tiers, I would put Saganash in the top tier and Topp in the bottom tier.

I can’t seem to figure out his reasoning. Barring someone’s staff showing Akin polling data that puts Saganash far ahead of Topp, I can’t figure this out. No doubt if he spoke to Saganash’s campaign manager, Daniel Wilson, he might get the impression that Saganash has serious momentum and Topp is languishing. That’s what’s to be expected. Hell, that’s a good line for all the campaigns to take, with Topp being perceived as the front-runner. Perhaps hearing the same talking points from several campaigns led him to the conclusion that Topp is behind in the polls. While I certainly think Topp has yet to hit his stride, which is probably reflected in less-than-fantastic numbers garnered via the one poll we have, I don’t think Topp is actually below Dewar or Saganash.

What the other campaigns want is for Saganash to make it to the convention. They want their guy/gal to be the second choice of Saganash’s supporters. Indeed, Akin makes light of this. Saganash might command, at best, 10% of the first ballot. That 10%, if it were to go solidly one way, could make-or-break a candidate. However, he simply has no organization, support, membership or money coming in from across the country. While he is a great candidate who is definitely raising the level of debate, he simply doesn’t have the support needed to win the race.
 
Ashton
I think Akin writes off Ashton too quickly. I’ve been saying this for awhile now; Niki has a slick marketing campaign, a respectable amount of support in the prairies and a structure that’s reasonable sized (given her middle-tier status.) She won’t win, and she might not even make it to the convention, but she could be a game-changer.
 
Cullen
I think Cullen’s complete lack of campaign really strikes me. No other candidate has been invisible as much as Cullen. Maybe it’s the part of the country I’m in (I’m not as tuned-in with West-coast activists/organizers) but I’ve seen hide-nor-hair of Cullen. His wealth of policy and debate performances, however, show leadership material hidden in his low-profile campaign. Yet his joint-nomination proposal has virtually killed his chances with the party faithful. I’ve spoken to many members who were sympathetic to Cullen before the race started, but who turned away as soon as he mentioned his proposal.

I would be absolutely shocked if Cullen made it to the convention. I think you’ll see him drop out in January or Feburary.
 
Singh
I’ve also given Martin much credit in the past. His (relative) strength in the Ontario suburbs and in Nova Scotia might be enough to make him valuable to a top-tier campaign. So far, it seems like he’ll have the money and time to see this race through till the end. Why not? He’s not an MP, and the campaign is good publicity for when he eventually decides to run for the House.

Barring a really sweet deal from one of the campaigns, Martin will stay a low-tier candidate right up until he gets knocked off the first ballot in Toronto.

So here’s how I see the tiers being fleshed out.

Top
  1. Topp
  2. Nash
  3. Mulcair
Middle
  1. Dewar
  2. Ashton
  3. Saganash
Bottom
  1. Cullen
  2. Singh

If there were just top/bottom tiers, Dewar, Ashton and Saganash would be in the bottom.

Second Choices?

So, as Akin rightfully points out, second choices are critical in this campaign. Akin details the process of advanced balloting - members are asked to rank their choices. If their candidate is knocked off the first ballot, their second choices are counted, and so on.

He, however, bypasses the importance of those voting at the convention. While a mere 1,500 attended the NDP’s 2011 convention, the leadership vote can almost certainly expect upwards of 5,000. (Considering the leadership aspect, the new members, it being in a more central location, etc.) Also, online voters have the option of voting after every ballot. Certainly that will attract many politicos.

That means that there is a sizable chunk of votes for whichever campaign can hustle delegates on the floor and online. Certainly, a few hundred votes could make all the difference.

My sense, having spoken with several organizers and activists from various camps, is that the second-choice game is very much in flux. Robert is still mulling his decisions - he’ll almost certainly come out for Mulcair, Topp or Nash. Ashton is not outside the realm of possibility, but I’ll eat my hat if Chisholm endorses Dewar.

I think Cullen, being one of the more centrist-oriented candidates, will likely find himself in Mulcair’s camp if/when he decides to drop out. (edit: Joffré Leroux makes a good point. Cullen is personally more inclined to Nash.) Ashton seems to gravitate towards Nash, but Topp could pull off a big coup by winning her support. Saganash is completely outside of Mulcair’s universe, and is almost certainly going towards Nash or Topp. Singh is a wildcard, but would be a logical choice for Mulcair.

The biggest question is who will be Mulcair and Peggy’s second choices. Assuming neither win, they will be the most important players in the last few rounds of voting.

Mulcair will likely find himself beached on the rocks of second choices. While no concerted anyone-but-Tom plan may exist on the top level, there’s no doubt that some of the membership would be uncomfortable with him as leader. And with, seemingly, no candidates (aside from Singh and possibly Cullen) in his realm, it may prove tough for Mulcair to garner more votes on the proceeding ballots. The first ballot may prove to be his high-water mark.

Peggy has a lot more to gain. However, a soft first ballot result would spell trouble for her, because the convention delegates won’t flock to her if she eeks out a distant third on the first ballot.
If we’re talking ideologically, those at home are likely to put Nash as a second choice behind Topp, and vice versa. Nash could be the push Topp needs to overcome Mulcair, if that what it ends up being. If it comes down to Topp and Nash, the waters could be much murkier.

But let’s say that both Peggy and Mulcair supporters put some of the lower-tier candidates as their second, third, fourth, etc. choices - so Peggy gets dropped off with only Topp and Mulcair left. All the voters who cast their ballots online or by mail who put, say, Topp one spot above Mulcair (say, 5th and 6th, respectively) would catapult Topp to victory.

These politics are fascinating. The cynical part of me wonders if Mulcair’s gameplan is to just not make any waves and become an affable, albeit boring, candidate. Then, come convention day, he sticks around for a few ballots out of tepid support, then picks up a wealth of support by coming in above Topp.

I’m not convinced that would work, but it would be an interesting strategy if that were the case.
 

What Good is Polling?

 
Polling can offer us a great pan-Canadian snapshot of how the campaigns are playing. They can tell us how well each candidate is penetrating a province, how strong they are on individual subjects, how likeable they are. They will not, however, give us an accurate representation of how the candidates are doing among the membership. Not even the internal polling for any of the campaigns will tell us that.

Why?

First, polling companies do not have the information available to poll just NDP members. Any poll they put in the field will either bring back results from all voters, or previous NDP voters. Of those New Democrat voters, roughly 15% are libel to be those who voted for the NDP for the first time in 2011. And very, very few will actually be members. So any results will offer opinions from all of Canada (which will offer insight into how well the candidates are managing their media) and from left-of-center voters (which would, ideally, offer data on how policy is playing.)

Second, internal polling is likely running off the NDP membership rolls. This could mean several things. It could be that some of the campaigns are calling selective groups - i.e. non-representative samples - in order to gauge their support in areas they hope to do well in. So, perhaps Peggy is doing calling into Toronto to evaluate how much resources should be put there.
It’s quite likely that these “polls” aren’t really polls at all, but they’re rather push campaigns - trying to encourage supporters or volunteers from those who the company contacts. This polling data is useless to give an accurate representation of how the campaigns are doing. I would not be surprised if this is the data that Akin has.

This is a pretty old trick. Dippers have a database system to track their supporters and members. They can do “polling” (really, phone canvassing) into those rolls and they occasionally leak it as positive data.

If the campaigns are doing actual polling from their membership lists, it may fail to include new members. Mulcair’s polling may have him up by 5%, but Topp’s polling may have Brian up 10%. That could be a matter of who they’re calling. If Mulcair is calling members who were registered from pre-2011, while Topp is focusing on new members, it could entirely shift the results.
Unless one of the polling firms commissions a massive poll that aims at NDP members, I’m not convinced we’ll get an accurate read of the field.

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