Murray Mandryk of the Leader Post has some thoughts on the unofficial jockeying for position that’s happening behind-the-scenes as potential candidates position themselves for a run at the leadership of the Saskatchewan NDP. (I think candidates can officially begin announcing next month maybe?)
Based on Mandryk’s article, here are the presumed candidates (alphabetically) with what I see as their main strengths and weaknesses in my (admittedly limited) view:
Buckley Belanger
Strength: Easily the most experienced of the potential candidates.
Weakness: The NDP is ready for an Aboriginal leader but I’m not sure if the province is.
Cam Broten
Strength: I have to be honest. Cam is probably the candidate I know the least about of the four “big” names (even compared to Erin Weir who I’ve read articles by and seen on TV.) So I can’t really speak to Broten’s strengths. Mandryk says he’s arguably been the best performer of the small but mighty NDP caucus and simply being a sitting MLA is presumably an advantage in the eyes of some NDP members who will be voting for the next party leader.
Weakness: Mandryk also observed that Broten has the least “trust” as he doesn’t seem to have gotten a team around him. I don’t know how much truth there is to this as Mandryk’s based in Regina so perhaps isn’t as plugged in to what Broten’s supporters are doing behind-the-scenes in Saskatoon as the other candidates, all of whom already have vocal Regina-based supporters? But if that’s true, it doesn’t bode well for his chances.
Danielle Chartier
Strength: I personally don’t like having token candidates but there are some I’ve talked to who feel the race needs a female to run and would vote for a female candidate on that basis alone. I wouldn’t base an entire campaign on having two x chromosomes but it could be a starting point for a broader appeal?
Weakness: Even though she has the advantage of being a sitting MLA, she arguably has the lowest profile of any of the potential candidates including Ryan Meili who is well-known from his last leadership run and Erin Weir who has had lots of national media coverage as a pundit on various shows.
Ryan Meili
Strength: Well, I’m biased as a Ryan supporter but I still believe he’s the only potential candidate I’ve seen with the potential to be a transformative leader for our province.
Weakness: A lot of people (including Mandryk) think that Ryan dropping out of the race for the Saskatoon-Sutherland nomination is a weakness but personally, I think that’s inside baseball that only the people who live & breathe politics care about. Even among the general membership of the NDP, I doubt most people would care about this too much. So for me, Ryan’s lack of actual political experience is probably his biggest weakness.
Trent Wotherspoon
Strength: Broten may be a better performer bur arguably, Trent has seemed to have a higher profile of the two (and based on the traveling he’s already doing around the province according to his Facebook page, I’d agree with Mandryk that Wotherspoon is probably the front-runner at this point.)
Weakness: Mandryk’s right on the money that Wotherspoon’s close association with Dwain Lingenfelter will likely be toxic (okay, Mandryk may not have used that exact word!) to his leadership run given the post-apocalyptic state of the NDP after Link’s short reign.
Erin Weir
Strength: For some, the fact that he’s a huge policy wonk and/or that he’s got an established national media profile will be big strengths for his campaign but I think that a strength is that he’s got potential to fill that “outsider who comes-out-of-nowhere” role that lifted Ryan Meili to a second place finish last time.
Weakness: In the same way that Ryan was an outsider to the party with little actual direct involvement with the NDP before his leadership race, Erin is similarly an outsider in that he’s got roots in the province but has been based outside of and built much of his profile beyond our borders, leaving him as more of an unknown commodity here.
The other thing in the mix is that there’s always potential for someone unexpected and/or unknown to jump into the race. I think Ryan Meili was that person last time so there could be someone else from the social justice movement or pretty much anywhere else that announces. Or perhaps, if the NDP hasn’t been burned by the “bring back a former star” experiment with Link, someone like say, former MLA Andrew Thomson, could shake things up by announcing. (Completely speculating there – just throwing out a name of a former rising star who was seen to have leadership ambitions at one point.)
Related posts:
- Five Things That Had The Biggest Impact in the 2009 Sask NDP Leadership Race (And Five That Didn't)
- Friday Fun *Links* – Some Randomness From Around The Web About the NDP Leadership Race (May 15, 2009)
- Some Random Observations Around the NDP Leadership Race
- Some Thoughts on the Federal NDP Leadership Race
- The Role of Blogs in the 2009 Saskatchewan NDP Leadership Race
Comments 2
Hey Jason:
At the risk of also coming across as biased (I am clearly identified as a Weir supporter), I would agree with most of your points (pros and cons) but I would take a small exception with the notion that Erin is an “outsider”. Actually, he has far more direct involvement with the Sask NDP for a longer period of time then any other candidate. In fact we ran against each other for President of the Youth Wing in the early 2000′s and Erin has been involved in the party in SK since he was a teenager in the 90′s. He has also worked on federal and provincial election campaigns in the province going back decades.
I will agree with your point that his profile has been built up over the last few years, in which he was not located in the province, although I personally feel that national media exposure includes SK by definition
Anyway, glad you are blogging the race again, I enjoyed reading your posts last time. Even if we are supporting different candidates, I look forward to seeing what you have to say.
Steven Lloyd
Enter reply
HeadTale Reply:
September 5th, 2012 at 9:14 am
Hi Steven,
I’m mostly going by my own frame of reference when I call him an “outsider”.
As I’ve written about before, I was briefly a member of the party back when Lorne Calvert was elected then left the province and didn’t get involved with the NDP again until Ryan’s leadership race at which point I started to learn a bit more about “who’s who” of the Sask NDP.
So thanks for the clarification about Erin’s deep roots with the party – that’ll definitely be helpful with many of the people voting in the leadership race.
But I stand by my “outsider” point in that I’m still not sure he’s a known commodity in the wider province in the way the other candidates are (yes, even Ryan.) And even if Erin’s media exposure includes Saskatchewan, he’s come across as someone who’s either from central Canada or has spent a lot of time there.
It’d be interesting to see a person-on-the-street quiz to see how much name recognition the various leadership candidates have among the general population.
Maybe if I’m bored some Saturday?
Enter reply
Nice post. I’m inclined to think that the new NDP leader will have to be someone with very little political baggage. Right or wrong, the public perception of the Romanow/Calvert years skews negative in the public mind
and if I were running I would disavow any connection to that history. One can argue that Calvert and Romanow were honorable men, but I suspect history will think of them as managers rather than leaders.
I will not even write the name of the NDP leader in the last election. That man tainted the party name, history and virtually anyone connected to it. Wotherspoon and to a lesser extent Broten own some of this and they are going to have to do something to remove the rocks that man placed in their political backpacks.
Meili is a very good man, but needs to show he’s composed of sterner stuff than his nomination battle showed. That said, I’ll take decency over any number of other qualities.
Weir is smart, and can inject some much needed intellectual heft to the political climate in Saskatchewan. I don’t know much about Weir, but I wonder about his ability to appeal to a mass audience. I’d also be very interested to know if Weir will run for MLA if he doesn’t win leadership.
The other people mentioned are serious contenders too, but interest me less at this point.
I wouldn’t rule out a comeback attempt by someone from the past, but off the top of my head I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t have serious baggage, and is young enough to make a difference.
There’s still room for ambitious newcomers too.
Interesting times. I guess it’s encouraging that a number if people want such a difficult job.
Enter reply
HeadTale Reply:
September 5th, 2012 at 9:17 am
Thanks for your thoughts. Any plans to resurrect your own blog for the contest? I’ll pay Steven’s earlier comment forward and say I always enjoyed reading your posts and analysis and think the more voices covering this race, the better.
Enter reply
REP Reply:
September 5th, 2012 at 9:41 pm
Thanks for the kind words. I’m a fan of your blog and I’m looking forward to your posts. A couple of major media pundits have tweeted the opinion that this will be a boring leadership race so I suspect they will be mostly absent from the commentary, and I hope bloggers can pick up that slack.
For the most part though, I will leave that to others. I started a little personal blog and may chime in from time-to-time there, but I don’t expect to do any significant amount of news or political blogging.
Enter reply
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