Head Tale

Shea and I went
to the first day of the NDP convention today courtesy of our
constituency association.  We were a bit late arriving, having to run
some last-minute errands for the Meili campaign (ah, the life of a
lowly volunteer! ) 
It was a very interesting day – surprising how many people we knew –
co-workers, former co-workers, colleagues, Shea's uncle (who's on the
conference planning committee or something) and so on. 

Morning
was Resolutions and to be honest, the stuff they were discussing – from
anti-nuke stuff to legalizing drugs to who should serve on municipal
police boards – alternated from really engrossing to desperately
boring.  Someone observed that “the problem is that you see the same
people getting up over and over and you know they're going to say the
same things about the same pet issue that they've been saying for 15
years.”  (It made me wonder if there's some connection between people
who can't resist approaching an open mic and people who maintain blogs?
)

Had
conversations with a couple people who explained why they were
supporting Link – one person said “Link knows money – how to raise it,
how to deal with it.”  All I could think was “Really???”  Because from
what I've seen, Link's skill with money basically extends to raising a
whackload of it (including from some companies that no one can find
record of – I can't find the link to that disccussion now but I think
it was on Jurist).  His other skill with money includes how to spend
$11 000 in small bills to buy memberships for people who don't want
them and/or don't know they're getting them.  It actually blows my mind
that “he knows money” of all reasons is why someone would say they're
supporting Link. 

Someone
else made the experience argument to me which is maybe Ryan's biggest
weaknesses in the eyes of some NDP members – especially many boomers
who often have a very linear notion of what might constitute a career.
This person literally said to me: “Ryan should start by getting
involved with his constituency association then maybe run for MLA in a
few years then move into cabinet a few years after that then, when he's
paid his dues, he can run for leader.”  I countered that, in my eyes,
Ryan not having long, deep party ties is a big part of his appeal.  He
doesn't owe somebody a favour from the 1982 convention or still carry a
grudge from the 1993 one.  He isn't yet completely burdened by internal
party politics of “who loves me, who loves me not” that might prevent
someone from actually being able to accomplish anything.  Plus I think
he's proven himself in other arenas to be more than capable of leading
a provincial political party, especially if he surrounds himself with
experienced hands as I'm sure he would.

I'll give an example from libraryland.  The National Library of Canada recently appointed their National Librarian who did not have a Master of Library Science degree.  There were debates about this continually at CLA last week and many of the same arguments were put forward – if you don't have an MLIS, you don't know the issues.  You don't know the history.  You don't know the language.  And as a professional, I tend to agree with those arguments.  But then I think that the most famous recent National Librarian was author, Roch Carrier, who brought a huge amount of profile and a unique perspective to the position and I know that, when you're talking about a leadership role, not just a “typical” position, past credentials and history and connections aren't necessarily the most important things.  Ability to lead and to get things done is. 

Afternoon
was further discussion on those same resolutions (someone explained it
to me but I'm still not sure why they discuss these things then break
for lunch then come back and discuss them again!  I think the morning
is supposed to be a chance to really work them over then they're
supposed to go away and someone picks which ones should be discussed in
the afternoon “for real” if they can't get to them all.  Either that or
they're trying to encourage new members to never attend a meeting
again! )

The
day ended with a tribute to Lorne Calvert featuring Premier Gary Doer
of Manitoba and the other two living former Saskatchewan premiers,
Allan Blakeney and Roy Romanow as well as Mr. Calvert's daughter. 
Great speeches by all – Blakeney's was probably my favourite – and I'm
man enough to admit that I teared up numerous times throughout all of
them.  (I also briefly considered a plan to buy a Sask Party membership
and attend their convention the next time it happens, just to compare
and contrast, how things are done at each.) 

After supper at home, went back to the hospitality suites at the Regina Inn tonight and it was great.  Jurist has already detailed
how three of the candidates had theirs at that venue while Dwain
Lingenfelter had his at the Hotel Sask.  Someone said that Link booked
his event first so I can't help wondering if this, like so many other
things in this race, reflects a real division within the party?  Link
was quoted recently as saying that if he wins, it'll be like Obama and
Hillary with him and the other candidates – they fought hard but came
together to work afterwards.  Only that there are a couple fairly major
problems with that analogy – by any reasonable measure, Meili is the
Obama figure (ie. the eventual winner) so it's speculation how things would've worked out if Hillary had won.  Also, Hillary was willing to stick
around to work with Obama whereas Link is on record as saying he won't
stick around to run for a seat if he loses while all other candidates
have said that they would.  So I guess he's not seeing himself as a Hillary figure in any way, shape or form – even though he is!

The
winner of “most people” in terms of the hospitality suites at the
Regina Inn?  The hallway outside the Pedersen/Meili suites!  That's
where the bar was and that was where a lot of people ended up
congregating.   

Highlight
of the whole day?  Listening to the replay of John Gormley Live
(well-known talk radio host in Saskatchewan) on the drive home and
hearing him say “auto erotic asphyxiation” about fifty times while
discussing the David Carradine death (he said his staff checked and
he'd done 14 000 topics in his time on the air and that phrase had
never been uttered before.  He definitely made up for it!)   

They
also had a clip of the new leader of the Sask Green party saying she
hoped Link didn't win because it would be a huge blow to the NDP's
credibility as an environmental party.  I thought that was pretty cool
– the Green party stands to be one of the other winners if Link wins
since there could be an exodus of new and/or progressive NDP members to
the Green party.  Yet, here was the young new leader of a
what is currently a fringe party in Saskatchewan saying they don't want
to gain members at a cost to our planet.  Amazing to put principles
first and as one person who spoke to a really long resolution
re-affirming the NDP's commitment to all kinds of our core issues said,
(I paraphrase) “Why are we even discussing this?”

I always forget that people are actually reading this blog but heard
from a few people that they've been following my political posts.  (I was keeping a
pretty low profile at the convention – not walking up to people and saying “Hi, I'm
Jason.  I blog at Head Tale.  Have you seen it???”)



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