There was a forum for the candidates for the NDP leadership tonight at a local restaurant so I headed over to check it out. Here are some random impressions…
– I arrived early and bumped into a young woman who looked really familiar but who I couldn't place. She did the “you look familiar…” routine with me too and it turns out she was a journalism student who did a brief placement with an organization I worked for a few years ago. Inevitable “small world” comment is followed with some catching up on each others' lives since then.
– the event started to fill up so I slipped into the private room they'd booked and grabbed a seat. Luckily I did because they ended up getting probably 3x the number of guests they expected. (I ended up helping to carry out a table with a sitting MLA doing the heavy-lifting at the other end to clear room for more chairs!)
– I'm biased but I interpret this turnout as a pretty good sign for the campaign of Ryan Meili – I think people who are involved with the NDP enough to come out for an event like this are also very curious about this new, bright young light who doesn't have much history with the party but has a buzz going. (Meili just got endorsed today by two former Cabinet Ministers and I wonder if that's an echo of the slow build that Obama saw in the States too when all the initial endorsements went to Hillary thinking she was a “safe” choice. Similarly, right now, the leader in the race, Dwain Lingenfelter has been endorsed by 10 of the 20 sitting Sask MLA's I think.)
– they drew names randomly for the order in which the candidates would speak and first up was…Dwain Lingen…I mean, Harry Van Mulligan [Edit: Mulligen – though I think he gets that all the time!]. The former Finance Minister was subbing in for Mr. Lingenfelter and I'm not sure how people will take this – I kinda got a sense that some people in attendance found it a bit insulting that all the other candidates could make the effort to attend but Mr. Lingenfelter couldn't. (To be fair, I have no idea what his reasons for not attending were – but again, there is a very sizable “anyone but Link” contingent out there and part of this is predicated on the fact that he is seen as having abandoned the party (and the province) for a plush government relations job with an oil company in Calgary when the NDP lost a previous election. Now he's coming back as if he's a knight on a white stallion but some people still think he's somebody who doesn't show up when he should and not appearing tonight doesn't help that reputation.)
– second on the list was Deb Higgins who is a sitting MLA from Moose Jaw. Her speech quite good but I almost wonder if this happens automatically when you've been in politics for awhile – both her and Mr. Van Mulligan [Mulligen] spoke like politicians instead of real people – safe platitudes while circling around issues instead of being direct. I don't know – maybe that's the reality of having to play it safe all the time so you never offend anyone. I guess that also means I'll never be a politician (er, not least because I have a blog where I post this – won't someone think of the children???)
– Next up was Yens Pedersen who's a young lawyer and former NDP party president. His speech was quite good (all were given a quote from an Allan Blakeney book about Saskatchewan's place in Canada and asked to speak to that). I'm not sure if this was intentional but he seemed to directly point out the absence of Mr. Lingenfelter in his remarks when he mentioned the other two candidates in attendance but failed to note the appearance of Mr. Van Mulligan [Mulligen], even in his substitute role.
– Ryan Meili drew the final spot which can be a blessing or a curse. Luckily, he quickly got the crowd on side with a funny joke I wish I could remember then launched into a speech that was…well, I wish I'd had my video camera there so you could be watching it on YouTube right now. He got tons of applause during his presentation and quite a few laughs as well. Of the three, he sounded the least like a politician and the most like a leader if that makes any sense.
I admit that I'm biased because I really like what Ryan Meili brings to the contest but now, having had occasion to hear all four candidates (okay, three and a proxy), I've solidified my support for Ryan Meili. Tonight, I think he stole the show and gave a big group of Regina-area NDP loyalists a lot to think about. (Afterwards, I talked to one person I knew from my undergrad days who said they didn't have a party membership but were thinking of taking one out, just to vote for Ryan!)
I also thought of another thing to add to my list of Ryan's similarities to Obama – he comes across as very cerebral and someone who puts a lot of deep thought into his opinions before speaking them.
– Shea was at home with Pace so I didn't stick around for the hob-nobbing afterwards but as I mentioned above, I did get to say 'hi' to a couple people I knew.
– I think I've also volunteered to help out with the online aspects of Ryan's campaign which I'm quite looking forward to. I watched what Obama did with the online aspects of his campaign very closely and would love to try to model some stuff for the Meili campaign in Saskatchewan.
More on this topic in the weeks to come…
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