Mulcair delivers new politics to NDP

Many signs of cultural change on display in leadership vote.

by Ish Theilheimer

TORONTO, Straight Goods News, March 25, 2012 — At about 9:20 on Saturday night after four exhausting ballots, members of the NDP chose a new kind of politics in Tom Mulcair. The new leader answered in kind, with a low-key acceptance and a next-day love-in with former leadership rivals.

Mulcair's overwhelming support — he led on every ballot, and won with 56 percent of the vote despite the Party establishment's attempt to stop him — showed how keenly the membership embraced this new kind of leader.

To understand how different Mulcair is from conventional NDP leaders requires an understanding of the Party's culture. That culture, traditionally, has combined picket line grit, obsession with parliamentary procedure, retail electioneering, and moral sanctimony for the many causes that comprise this coalition called a political party. It was a culture of moral victories and a narrow base. Jack Layton made real progress toward changing it.

Tom Mulcair, however, aimed to change that culture for good. He appears to have done so.

His low-key acceptance speech is a great example of his new politics. Although many reporters panned it as low-key and uninspiring, it actually accomplished exactly what he needed it to do.

In a party concerned about his personal style being too aggressive, Mulcair showed himself to be a compassionate person who loves his family and young people. Keen observers might have noted, as well, that the man was close to tears at least twice as ballots results were revealed, and that he and his family were constantly together.

In his speech, he put to rest concerns that he would tear the Party apart. He thanked all the volunteers and his rivals and their volunteers. He made self-deprecating remarks about his recent conversion to the Party. He talked about improving the state of politics so that young people might care about it. Most of all, he began and ended in French, speaking in a French almost anyone could understand. Point taken.

There was no bombastic rhetoric such as you would expect from NDP leaders, although everyone knows he can deliver a barn-burner. This guy talks differently, and the difference is subtle. Of course he's pragmatic, but so was St Jack. The difference involves more than that, though.

First of all, he used to be a Liberal, and his manner of speaking reflects that. Dippers tend toward moralistic clichés and jargon many find off-putting or marginalizing. Grits are more inclusive. They're also mushier and harder to pin down — but by and large, Mulcair hasn't been accused of this fault.

Another important change showed up in where Mulcair's support came from. He was not, as the world knows, the Establishment's candidate, nor was he Toronto's. Usually, the winner is both these things and reflects the Centre's priorities rather than those of the regions.

Yet another major shift is that Mulcair is the first NDP leader who did not win with widespread labour backing, although UFCW Canada President Wayne Hanley spoke as a nominator for him. This change was great strategy and helpful in terms of party-building. It was ironic, too, in that Mulcair, whose NDP values were questioned by campaign opponents, was the only leadership candidate to have a union leader as a nominator.

What is truly historic is that the NDP has its first Quebec leader, a politician with deep roots and total credibility there. Quebec leaders have worked very, very well for the Liberals and Conservatives, and even though the province doesn't have the numerical clout it once had, it is impossible for the NDP (or Liberals) to win without it. With Mulcair's leadership, the NDP can truly claim, now, to be a national party.

Reflecting this shift, Mulcair's supporters at the convention sang the European soccer anthem "Olé Olé Olé Olé" for him, over and over and over. No one has sung spontaneously at an NDP leadership convention in this correspondent's memory.

Mulcair's victory in the leadership race is bad news for lots of other parties. The Bloc Québecois and Parti Québecois hate it, because he has dined out on separatists for years. His position as NDP Leader cuts off their rebuilding plans at the knees. It's terrible news for the Conservatives, who can't seem to think of anything worse to frame him as than "hard left," something his worst rivals said he wasn't. The Harperites badly wanted someone with union connections who they could trash, and they would have relished attacking Nathan Cullen for his coalition politics.

Federal Liberals, however, lost the most with Mulcair's ascension. With his debating skills and Quebec base, he takes the wind out of the sails of the likes of Bob Rae and Justin Trudeau, gobbling up political turf that his more left-wing former leadership rivals would have ceded.

Perhaps the most important cultural shift was defined by circumstances. Never before had the NDP had the opportunity to pick a potential Prime Minister.

In the past, everyone knew this was highly unlikely. This time around, it was possible. The range of Mulcair's support — much of it coming from "regions" like Quebec, the North, and the West — said loud and clear that the people who knock on the doors, put up lawn signs and raise the money year after year have had it with losing.

If the urge to win meant dropping old rhetoric and electing a former Liberal with pragmatic and feisty streak, they were fine with it. New Democrats knew this was a vote for victory. This was their best bet, and they took it.

Winning would be the greatest cultural shift of all. On the day after his victory, Mulcair laid out some thoughts on attaining it by building a "structured opposition" ready to take over government and able to convince Canadians it can. He re-appointed (arch Brian Topp endorser) Libby Davies, icon of the Party's left wing, as Caucus co-chair and reassured Caucus staff there would be no purges or upheaval.

In every way, Thomas Mulcair is walking the talk of cultural change within the NDP. It looks good on him, and the Party too.

*****

Convention notes 
The huge number of convention delegates — reportedly more than 4,600 — resulted in the event taking place in a huge hall with a sort of horseshoe configuration and a long thrust stage. It was not a good or easy place to deliver or listen to a speech, and most of the candidate presentations on Friday afternoon fell flat, as noted by other media commentators. In many cases, the hoopla of the candidate's shows also interfered with their ability to deliver good speeches. More traditional theatre-style seating would have helped.

• As in 2003 when Jack Layton was elected NDP leader, but more so, the voting was plagued by difficulties with the online system. It was really classy for Paul Dewar and Martin to give up after the first ballot. Nathan Cullen could have quit after two ballots, and Brian Topp could have conceded after three. He just had no room to grow. His hanging in, however, eliminated any possible argument the win might have been tainted, as happened in 1995, when Svend Robinson conceded the leadership to Alexa McDonough despite being ahead of her after the first ballot.
• The voter turnout in the leadership election was shockingly low. Out of 128,000 members, at least 50,000 of whom were recruited during the leadership campaign, only about 65,000 voted — or about 51 percent. Of these, nearly 56,000 voted in advance by mail, so only about 9,000 votes were at play on the weekend. These last are the ones the voting clogged voting system handled so slowly. Had three-quarters of the members voted, results might have been delayed until Monday.
• The large slate of leadership candidates was ungainly in many ways to deal with, but they reflected well on the NDP, as most observers have mentioned.

Niki Ashton 
was disappointed and surprised by having the lowest first-ballot support, but she also may have made the best speech on Friday afternoon, and she clearly has a bright future with the NDP.

Martin Singh 
won nothing but friends and admirers for himself and the Party, bringing many South Asians into the fold and showing that the NDP is small business-friendly. Having his son play old-time fiddle on stage was a nice touch in an innovative candidate presentation that included his life history in animated cartoon format. There will be lots of room in the Party for him.

Paul Dewar 
may have organized the best demonstration gave a sincere speech in which he came off, as ever, as a person with class and guts. He also emerged as someone who grew with the campaign and accepted adversity — like his linguistic challenge — with grace. His future in the NDP should be undiminished.

Peggy Nash 
appeared to have the toughest time of all candidates, with her Friday speech squashed by technical difficulties and her candidacy squashed by the labour establishment so strongly backing Brian Topp rather than her. Delegates told us that her CAW background might have kept her from having more union support due to the famous bygone battles between her former union, her former boss there Buzz Hargrove, and the Party.

Nathan Cullen 
eschewed all the claptrap and simply spoke to delegates with energy and passion in his Friday address, for the allotted 20 minutes. Many delegates that we interviewed, however, said they hated the idea of working with Liberals. Apparently many others felt the same way, blocking any chance his share of the vote could grow. His future with the Party, though, should be bright. In terms of building strength in the West, the Party would be crazy to reject him, just as it would have been crazy to reject Mulcair and hope to grow in Quebec.

Brian Topp 
came off as a professional and a team player. He never showed personal bitterness about the direction of things, though he undoubtedly knew for weeks that the leadership was not his to win. If he had quit after three ballots, everyone could have gone home early and the NDP would have had a prime time hit and better Sunday coverage. But as defender of the Party's old order, he had to take it as far as he could.

The NDP would be unwise, though, not to retain his intellect, experience and policy knowledge. His campaign made the kind of strategic errors front runners often make &— coming on too hard at first, assuming too much support, and then reacting desperately when the momentum shifted. Still, he deserves credit for professionalism and a good shot of chutzpah, running for leader although he'd never been elected to anything. Things might have been very different had he chosen to run in the Danforth by-election. We'll never know, though.

*****

Convention videos

by Ish Theilheimer with YouTube video clips by Samantha Bayard with Jim Goss

TORONTO, Straight Goods News, March 24, 2012: The NDP leadership convention, despite all the noise and whoop-de-doo, was a time or reflection and soul-searching for many Party members. Choosing between the alternative visions and politics offered by the contenders left many New Democrats wondering what to do right until the moment they voted. Quite possibly, that indecision and confusion contributed to a voter turnout of about 51 percent.

Straight Goods News was on the scene to capture some impressions of the event and the observations of a few of the 4,000+ activists who attended.

Click here for the playlist of posted videos.

Here is a list of links to the individual videos we posted: A wrapup from Ish Theilheimer

Thomas Mulcair's acceptance speech

Delegates – a collection of interviews

Adam Giambrone

Paul Moist, CUPE

Dave Coles, CEP

Joe Comartin, MP, Windsor-Tecumseh

Joe Cressy, Paul Dewar communications officer

Jim Rutkowski, Brian Topp communications officer

Lynda Gerty, Nathan Cullen communications officer

Zuzia Danielski, Peggy Nash communications officer

Ian Gillespie, Tom Mulcair organizer

Mel Watkins

Niki Ashton, scrum after first ballot results

Backgound video collected includes: Thomas Mulcair, reaction after third ballot

Nathan Cullen, reaction after third ballot

Brian Topp, reaction after second ballot

Olivia Chow salutes Jack Layton

Nathan Cullen, scrum

Peggy Nash, after the second ballot

Brian Topp, after first ballot

Nathan Cullen, reaction after first ballot

Tom Mulcair demo with drums

Charlie Angus raps for Paul Dewar

© Copyright 2012 Ish Theilheimer, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca