Yesterday’s announcement of the membership numbers for the Saskatchewan NDP leadership race gives us some indication as to how the rest of the campaign will play out. But let’s put the final membership number in context. First of all, the oft-mentioned 35% increase over the party’s 2012 numbers is bound
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Accidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Candidate Rankings – January 29
At the best of times, what’s visible and accessible to the public makes for only a relatively small part of a leadership campaign’s work. But that goes doubly over the course of a week featuring a membership deadline with no corresponding announcement of the results. With that in mind, we
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On second choices
The next week should be a relatively quiet one for the Saskatchewan NDP’s leadership candidates: the membership deadline has passed, while the finalized list of members won’t necessarily be available until the end of the week ahead (per the leadership rules). But I’ll use the opportunity to note one point
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Roundup
One of the more important dates of the Saskatchewan NDP leadership campaign passed yesterday, as the membership deadline will close the list of members eligible to vote for the party’s next leader. We’ll find out the official numbers before too long, but for now two of the campaigns have given
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr – Weyburn Debate Notes
In principle, we might have expected the first debate after the holiday break to signal any change in direction from Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership candidates. But it was instead the Weyburn debate which saw a couple of significant changes in tone and strategy (on top of the usual number of noteworthy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how a close Saskatchewan NDP leadership campaign makes it all the more likely that a small number of new members can make a massive difference in the race. The most important followup link is naturally to the party’s membership page – which should be the best way to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Candidate Rankings – January 22
Not surprisingly, there’s relatively little change in this week’s rankings: there have been relatively few new developments, and the most significant ones have mostly reinforced the candidates’ current placements. 1. Ryan Meili (1) Meili’s December fund-raising success ensured that his top ranking wouldn’t be in jeopardy. But the most important
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Roundup
This past weekend saw another Saskatchewan NDP leadership debate, this time in Weyburn. But oddly enough (particularly given the presence of some of the most active social media presences in the campaign), Saturday’s debate was the first not to be covered live at the time – meaning that the best
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr – Rosetown Debate Notes
As Scott has already noted, the first Saskatchewan NDP leadership forum of 2013 saw plenty of familiar themes – particularly in the prepared speeches and the audience questions. But the candidate questions took a couple of interesting turns. The first candidate question went to Weir, and he used both of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Roundup
The most significant news from the Saskatchewan NDP leadership campaign this week was the release of another month’s worth of financial reports. And the December numbers look to reinforce rather than change the existing financial picture, with Ryan Meili posting strong gross and net numbers, Trent Wotherspoon spending enough to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Candidate Rankings Introduction
As I did in the NDP’s federal leadership campaign in 2012, I’ll start shortly with weekly rankings intended to highlight the relative positioning of the Saskatchewan NDP’s leadership candidates. But before I get into the rankings themselves, I’ll offer both a reminder of what they’re intended to accomplish, and a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Roundup
With the holiday break now over, we can likely expect a steady stream of news from Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership campaign until the March convention. So let’s take a look at a few developments from the past week. – While it’s still not clear how much progress Cam Broten has made
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Candidate Update – Trent Wotherspoon
Let’s close my mid-campaign updates with a look at Trent Wotherspoon – who started the campaign trying to lock in an image to swing the race in his favour, but looks instead to have generated the widest range of possible outcomes as the campaign kicks into high gear. Wotherspoon’s campaign
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Candidate Update – Erin Weir
As the candidate with the least name recognition in a field consisting of the 2009 Saskatchewan NDP leadership runner-up and two multi-term MLAs, Erin Weir has spent much of the ongoing leadership campaign working on being seen as a contender within the field, rather than being ignored an also-ran. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Candidate Update – Ryan Meili
When Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership race started, one of the most important questions for all of the candidates was the level of organization Ryan Meili would bring to the campaign: whether he’d build significantly from what had been a growing base by the end of the 2009 race, or largely start
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On party time
Not surprisingly, I have some reservations about Kai Nagata’s view that the federal Lib leadership campaign has much to offer toward the development of progressive politics in Canada. But I’ll give Nagata credit for this much: he’s absolutely right to make the point that we should treat active and public
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Candidate Update – Cam Broten
We’re now approaching the home stretch of Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership race – with the membership deadline looming in just over two weeks, and under two months left until the vote itself. But while there will be plenty of news to cover in that time, let’s take a look back at
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Roundup
With the holiday break coming to an end, let’s take a quick look at what’s new in the Saskatchewan NDP leadership campaign before taking stock as to where the candidates stand. While the official debates resume this weekend, the most important date to watch for is the January 25 membership
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On forced growth
Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership campaign has featured plenty of discussion as to how to define success as a party and a province. But it’s well worth contrasting the varying forms of quality-of-life and social health themes being debated within the NDP against an announcement which epitomizes the appallingly narrow focus of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Roundup
Not surprisingly, the last week has been fairly quiet on the Saskatchewan NDP leadership front. But I’ll offer comments on a couple of developments I hadn’t yet discussed. To start with, Joe Couture reported on questions about the similarities between Cam Broten’s leadership platform and the policy report produced from
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