Head Tale

When I first started following the NDP leadership race, I observed that there were many similarities between Ryan Meili and Barack Obama (and by extension, I saw Dwain Lingenfelter as playing the Hillary Clinton role – inevitable front-runner with name recognition and deep party ties being challenged by young upstart community organizer.) 

One of the most amazing aspects of Barack Obama's campaign was that he had an unerring sense of timing – something would happen and he would have an immediate response which made it appear almost as if he knew what was going to happen before his oppponent did. 

Ryan Meili appears to share this same skill which I see as a real mark of a true leader.  We saw a bit of this when Dwain Lingenfelter declared unilaterally that he was establishing a candidate's forum in the far north and Ryan Meili (in cooperation with Yens Pedersen) declared that this was an empty gesture since Link had scheduled his for after the membership deadline.  So Meili and Pedersen announced they would plan one – but for before the membership deadline.  (In the end, I didn't hear if Dwain showed up at his event to sit on stage alone but I believe the other candidates – including Deb Higgins – did show up at the alternate one – a development which is another indication of what it means to be a true leader.) 

And now, once again, with Water(hen)Gate erupting all around Dwain Lingenfelter after his campaign falsely submitted 1100 bogus memberships from two First Nations reserves, and with strong words of disapproval coming from bloggers (guilty!), the mainstream media, the NDP's opposition party and even other leadership candidates, Ryan Meili once again seems prescient in having this very professional, well-done campaign video ready for release today, one day after the NDP elected to throw out all 1100 disputed memberships and ask an investigator to dig deeper into exactly what transpired on the Flying Dust and Waterhen First Nations: