Head Tale

The #skndpldr contest kicked off in September and ends in March which means that early-to-mid-December is basically the halfway point of the campaign for all of them.  Since I’m big on celebrating milestones, I thought I’d take a moment to recognize some of the funniest, most memorable surprising and appreciated moments each has had so far as well as share how I think they rank so far – both among the voting members and also in my personal opinion.

Cam Broten
Biggest Surprise –  Given how glitzy Trent’s launch was and how many miles Trent put on early (which I thought would indicate fundraising to match), I was a bit surprised that it was Cam who had the biggest fundraising total in the first month (of course, that also means that his campaign posting the biggest drop-off to the second month was an even bigger surprise.)

A Funny Moment – During the Regina debate, there was a question about poverty and without a doubt, Ryan owns this issue, given his day-to-day work and the fact that he lives in Saskatoon’s inner-city.  But that didn’t stop Cam from trying to (to my ears) “out-poor” Ryan with a weird anecdote about how he drives past prostitutes at the end of his driveway when he gets home from work every day. 

This one’s funnier – the face Cam’s pulling in a Saskatoon Star-Phoenix article about the Saskatoon debate.

A Memorable Moment – The recent endorsement by Cathy Sproule now means that Cam has two in-caucus endorsers (Cathy & Danielle Chartier) and Trent has one (Warren McCall) with four remaining undeclared.

An Appreciated Moment – After the first financial results were released, I was having trouble figuring out how Cam’s campaign could claim the most raised by donors under $250 when those numbers aren’t released.  They pointed out that it was easy – “subtraction”.  (Okay, they didn’t word it so abruptly!)

Candidate Rank – 2 (tie)

Candidate Rank (personal opinion) -4 (I’ve referred to it before on this blog but Cam is the candidate I’m least familiar with so that hurts how I rate him personally rather than how I think he’s doing generally.

Ryan Meili
Biggest Surprise –  The UFCW endorsement was huge given that Ryan didn’t get a lot of union support in 2009 and in this campaign, he talks frankly about how unions, like the NDP, need a real period of self-assessment

A Funny Moment – The Duck question on the Reddit AMA

A Memorable Moment – I’ll steal one from a first-time volunteer who came to one of our Regina events.  “Why’d you decide to support Ryan?” I asked.  “I was at the Regina debate and when he said, “Am I the person to lead this party? You bet I am!’, he was the only one I heard say that and it just resonated with me.” 

An Appreciated Moment – I got a nice phone call from Ryan during a particularly stressful moment.

Candidate Rank (my perception) – 2 (tie)

Candidate Rank (personal opinion) – 1

Erin Weir
Biggest Surprise –  As arguably the least well-positioned candidate at the start of the race (not a sitting MLA, not a previous leadership candidate), Erin has tenaciously hung on and is still right in the mix of things

A Funny Moment – In the first Regina debate, all the other candidates got asked which former leader they resembled/admired.  But somehow, Erin didn’t get asked that question so he quipped “I want the other question.  I had a great answer prepared for it!” which brought the house down.

A Memorable Moment – At one point, Chad Moats, who is on Erin’s social media team, got into a flame war on Twitter with Murray Mandryk of the Leader Post about how much coverage Erin was (or wasn’t) getting.  This led to another member of Team Weir recanting with the old line about “Don’t pick fights with people who buy their ink by the barrel!”

A Memorable Moment (corrected) – At one point, Chad Moats, who is on Erin’s social media team got into a gentlemanly discussion on Twitter with Murray Mandryk of the Leader Post about how Mandryk was spending an inordinate amount of time covering Brad Wall’s Movember moustache instead of covering important news like the Sask NDP leadership campaign.  The bon mots they exchanged were of varying hilarity, capped by a member of Team Weir withdrawing from the discussion with the old line about “Don’t pick fights with people who buy their ink by the barrel!”  (Completely separate but around the same time, Chad was also challenging people who expressed different views than him on Twitter to boxing matches in real life.  That had nothing to do with #skndpldr but was pretty entertaining too!)

An Appreciated Moment – There was recently a bit of drama on FB (when isn’t there?) and even though the issue was related to the Meili team and an oversight with a former volunteer, a member of Erin’s team very generously and professionally stepped in in defense of our (and by extension, all) campaign teams.

Candidate Rank (my perception) – 4

Candidate Rank (personal opinion) – 2 (tie)

Trent Wotherspoon
Biggest Surprise –  I guess I was surprised to see Trent running a deficit in the first month (which continues to this day.)  As someone (Stefani Langenegger?) observed on Twitter, the optics are poor when the Finance Critic for a party that’s already (wrongly) perceived as unable to balance the budget, is running a deficit.

A Funny Moment – Trent went for a morning run and later tweeted how beautiful the “horror frost” was.  (As someone who mixes up my homonyms all the time too, I thought this was funny.  But at least he didn’t write another homonym for “hoar”!)

A Memorable Moment –  His launch was a real “holy shit!” moment for me.  Glitzy, professional, packed to the rafters.  Really helped set a tone for his campaign right off the bat.

An Appreciated Moment – Had a chance to have a really in-depth conversation with one of Trent’s supporters at Coronation Park’s “US Election Viewing Party” which was quite enlightening.

Candidate Rank (my perception) – 1 (although I’d say the line between Trent and Cam & Ryan who I have tied in second is a thin one.  And I don’t think Erin’s as far back as some might think either.)

Candidate Rank (personal opinion) – 2 (tie)