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Ten Reasons I'm Supporting Ryan Meili – #9 – He's Got Very Little Baggage

One of Dwain Lingenfelter's greatest assets is also one of his greatest weaknesses.  He's been a part of Saskatchewan's political scene from 1978 until 2000 when he moved to Calgary to become an executive with Nexen Oil.  That's given him a great deal of experience in both politics and business during the past 30 years.  But it also means he has a long track record which will provide endless opportunities for opponents to seek out inconsistencies, mis-statements and other scandals, both public and private over a period of time equal to the time period when most people are considering retirement.  And of course, the Sask Party has already had a giant headstart at making political hay out of the Waterhengate Scandal in what you know will be the source of many Sask Party attacks in the 2011. 

Being both relatively young and new to political life, Ryan Meili has very little baggage that he will carry, should he become leader.  He was arrested during a peaceful protest at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in 2001 but he received an absolute discharge and the conviction was erased from his record after one year.  And based on what I heard Meili's campaign received in donations after the arrest hit the news, there are a lot of people out there who are impressed by his willingness to be arrested for his convictions rather than being troubled by it.

I've seen the attack quoted below about Ryan pop up in a couple places lately and have my suspicion that it's being put out by the Lingenfelter campaign since Yens Pedersen (directly) and Deb Higgins (I know I've seen this hinted at indirectly – perhaps in a blog comment somewhere – but I can't find a link to confirm) have each talked about being smeared by Lingenfelter callers.

“You have to remember that the fill-in doctor bought his first NDP
memberships 8 months ago…big commitment to the NDP! People should
also know that his entire family is one big collection of
Conservatives…his father usd to be one of Grant Devine's key
organizers in Thunder Creek. Nobody needs any lessons from him about
the future of the NDP!”

First off, “fill-in doctor” is so laughable as an attack for somebody who willingly chooses to go to rural Saskatchewan to give the over-worked doctors in those communities badly needed time off (and continues to do so even as he runs his campaign) that I won't even address it. 

Second, Ryan freely admits that he first became a member in 2001 but I guess “eight years” is the same as “eight months” if you're trying to marginalize someone's involvement in the party.  (Maybe Ryan needs to introduce some funding into dyslexia research as one of his first initiatives? )

Still, no matter how long he's been a member whether it's eight months, eight years or since 1978, the reality is that he's lived in the province for the majority of the last eight years and would obviously have been aware of (and on occasion has been directly involved in) various political activities within the province.  On the other hand, did Dwain Lingenfelter keep his membership up while he was living in Alberta for the past eight years?  (That's yet another little piece of baggage that the Sask Party will hammer him on – I mean, they changed their name to include the word “Saskatchewan” to get away from their own troubled past!) 

And finally, as for having conservatives in the family, all I can say is that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.  Don't the people making the attacks know that Dwain Lingenfelter's own son has rejected the NDP and even attended the 2006 Sask Party convention causing Brad Wall to gloat “Maybe it's time to put some cats into Mouseland?”

From the article: “Also in attendance was Travis Lingenfelter, the 18-year-old son of former NDP deputy premier Dwain Lingenfelter.
He said his father's party does not appeal to him “Lorne Calvert took over an economy that had a surplus and turned it
into a deficit,” he said. 'That just can't happen if we want youth to
stay in Saskatchewan. We need jobs.'”

In fact, if I had to compare the parents of Meili being Conservative supporters in the 1980's with Lingenfelter's son being a Conservative supporter now, I would go so far as to say the latter is much worse.  If Ryan's parents supported the Conservatives in the 1980's – guess what?  So did most people in rural Saskatchewan.  It was a time of massive Conservative majorities after all and the promise of a new hot tub via the Devine home improvement plan was pretty hard to resist! 

But Link's son, having spent a lifetime in the party and presumably having had a mostly urban upbringing, has still chosen to support the Sask Party in defiance of his father.  I can't help but think of Dion Tchorzewski, son of NDP icon Ed Tchorzewksi, who has talked about literally being raised in the party and because of this, having the NDP be as much of who he is as anything else that defines him.

Next: #8 – Ryan's run a positive campaign.

Posted 25 May 2009 § Main Page § Politics § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (0) °

Ten Reasons I'm Supporting Ryan Meili – #10 – He's Soft Spoken

Back when I
first started blogging regularly about the NDP leadership campaign, I
had a loyal reader named Kent (who I'm 98.3% sure is Kent Lindgren who recently endorsed Dwain Lingenfelter.)



At the time,
Kent took issue with oh, pretty much every single thing I said (a
tactic I'm increasingly seeing from Lingenfelter supporters not only
only my blog but on other blogs, message boards and even the
candidates' Wikipedia entries as
well.  It's like some Link supporters simply can't concede any points to any of the other candidates.  In fact, I'm tossing around the idea
of a blog post around some of the Lingenfelter campaign and supporters'
tactics as I find that this is perhaps one of the biggest underlying
philosophical differences between the Lingenfelter campaign and those of the other three candidates.) 



Anyhow, as
penance for making a mistake about the Google Maps mash-up on Dwain
Lingenfelter's campaign web site in a post back then (I thought it was
misleading on purpose, it turned out to be a fairly major usability
issue instead), I wrote a list of “5 Reasons Dwain Lingenfelter Would Make A Good Leader for the NDP“. 
I challenged Kent to do a similar list for Ryan Meili but even though
he kept posting increasingly trollish comments until I finally refused
to respond to him, he never did write that list. 



I still feel the
list of five reasons I gave for why Link would make a good leader
stand.  But in my opinion, the Waterhengate scandal has superseded all
of these reasons and, should Lingenfelter triumph on June 6, I will
have a really difficult time supporting him as leader.  (I know I'm not
the only person to feel this way – I've heard from new and long-term
NDP members as well as supporters for each and all of the other
candidates who feel similarly.) 



Anyhow, with two
weeks left in the leadership race I thought I would do a companion
series to my “Five Reasons Link Would Make A Good Leader” post.  Over the next couple weeks, I'll write a series of posts listing “Ten Reasons I'm Supporting Ryan Meili for NDP
Leader” (and using some of the Link supporters' logic, this will
obviously mean that Meili is twice the candidate that Link is! )



Reason #10 – He's Soft-Spoken

In one of my first posts about Ryan Meili, I wrote about the many parallels I saw between Ryan and Barack Obama. 
(See the comments in that thread for the type of reaches and
equivocations that the Lingenfelter campaign and its supporters are
increasingly targetting at Ryan as they see him as more and more of a
threat.)  Now obviously, this isn't a perfect analogy but just as Obama
never resisted too strongly when anyone compared him to JFK or Abraham Lincoln, a comparison like this can be a useful shorthand for the type of
candidate someone is, what they stand for and/or how they're attempting
to go about achieving their goals. 



One of the most
obvious differences between Obama and Meili is their respective
techniques as orators.  Obama is pretty much unparalleled in modern
politics with his ability to connect with and inspire a crowd.  Meili
is not nearly as accomplished as a speaker and I admit that, as someone
who was hoping to find an Obama-esque figure in this leadership race,
this was a disappointment for me the first couple times I heard Ryan
speak.  But as I began to realise that the person I chose to support
didn't need to be (and really, shouldn't be) an exact clone of Obama, I
began to see that Meili's style of speaking
– quiet, thoughtful, but with a healthy dose of humour – had the potential to be as
much of a benefit to his campaign as anything else he had to offer.  Why?  Simple. 
Because when Ryan speaks, you have to lean forward to listen to him. 



Can you imagine
a Legislative session where, instead of having the Sask Party and the
NDP leaders shouting at each other like kids in the sandbox, you have
someone like Ryan leading the debate – where there is a focus on nuance
and logic instead of hectoring and scoring cheap political points?  (Well, Ryan's campaign theme is “Dream Big” after all! )



The other thing
that's brought his soft-spokenness home as an advantage is seeing how
Ryan interacts with people at events – he doesn't intimidate people, he
draws them in.  It's a silly, insignificant detail but when he met my
eighteen month old son at an event, Ryan took a moment to get down on
Pace's level and spoke to him quietly for a moment, eliciting a big smile from my
son.  Everything else I'd learned and heard about Ryan up to that point made me want to
support him.  But with that small gesture, I was sold that Ryan was the
candidate I was going to support as fully as possible for the rest of
this campaign.     

Next #9 – He Has Very Little Baggage

Posted 24 May 2009 § Main Page § Politics § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (1) °

Friday Fun Link – A Trailer For "The Road" (May 22, 2009)

I haven't looked this forward to a movie since probably “Batman: Dark Knight” which completely lived up to my expectations plus more.  I hope this one does the same – one of the best books I've read (and re-read) in the past year or two.

Posted 23 May 2009 § Main Page § PopCulture § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Anybody remember Dwayne Wayne? – Playing The Name Game with Lingenfelter and Meili

When I first met Ryan, I made a special effort to take note of how his last name was pronounced (“Meili” rhymes with “smiley” – easy!) and I thought it was a silly thing but that his surname might be a slight barrier in his campaign.  As a relative unknown (at least when the campaign began) I thought there was a danger that people wouldn't be able to pronounce his name or would mis-spell it.  (Although to be fair, if the NDP can elect a Romanow, we can elect a Meili!) 

In retrospect, one of the funniest things in this campaign for me is seeing that most people spell Meili right and it's actually Dwain Lingenfelter's first name that causes people the most problems!  I can't find it now but there was an article in a Calgary paper (not one of the biggies – it looked like a community newspaper) that was about “Dwayne Lingenfelter” (who?)  Even among people who claim to be his biggeest supporters in CBC comments and on blog posts, I've seen “Dwaine“, “Dwayne“, “Duane” as well as the correct “Dwain”.   Wow – a mis-spelling even made it into the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan!

Save our province from the embarrassment of having a leader who's name no one can spell – vote Ryan Miley!

Posted 22 May 2009 § Humour § Main Page § Politics § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (1) °

Maybe Ryan Meili Should Adopt The Nickname "Link" Too?

Here's a two-part video I stumbled across on YouTube about the “Making the Links” program for U of S medical students which takes them to First Nations communities in northern Saskatchewan, rural villages in Mozambique and to the SWITCH (Student Wellness Initiative Toward Community Health) clinic that Ryan Meili co-founded in Saskatoon's inner-city.  The “Making the Links” program helps medical students learn first-hand about the social determinants of health and the inter-relation of factors influencing health on a global scale.

Posted 21 May 2009 § Main Page § Politics § Saskatchewan § Video ‡ Comments (4) °

I Can Hardly Wait/To See You Come of Age/But I Guess We'll Both Just Have To Be Patient

Pace Funny Moment of the (Other) Day:

We usually put him down for his nap in our room (we're still co-sleeping so it's “his” bed too.)  The other day, he was really fighting it and then it got quiet so we assumed he'd finally crashed.  Shea went down to check on him and called me “Jason, come see this!”  I go down to see Pace sitting up in bed, remote in hand, watching the cheap $10 garage sale TV we keep in our room!  He didn't know how to change the channel or turn up the volume but seemed quite contented to be watching the sports channel I'd left it on!

Happy birthday buddy – hard to believe it's been two years already!

Posted 20 May 2009 § Main Page § Pace § Photo ‡ Comments (0) °

Music Monday – "Now the lounge is full of farmers for the 7:30 draw/Teammates all left before they had to buy a round/When they pull the 50/50 and I've lost again, I'll go"

Posted 18 May 2009 § Main Page § MusicMonday § Video ‡ Comments (0) °

Dirt? I Didn't Eat No Dirt!

Posted 18 May 2009 § Humour § Main Page § Pace § Photo ‡ Comments (0) °

Friday Fun *Links* – Some Randomness From Around The Web About the NDP Leadership Race (May 15, 2009)

Here are some random things I'm seeing around the web as the Hale Report seems to have only poured fuel on the fire rather than clearing things up. 

The amount of attention being paid to the NDP leadership race seems to have grown greatly but unfortunately, not just because people are paying more attention now that we're down to less than a month until the Leadership convention. 

For example, The National Post picked up a Saskatoon Star-Phoenix story about the membership controversy.  Except they chose to illustrate it with a photo of Dwain Lingenfelter with Calgary's Banker's Hall behind him. 

Here are some more things I've seen…

CBC – Opponents Call for Police Probe into NDP Membership Controversy
Here's a comment that has 34 “Agree” votes and 0 “Disagree” votes as I type this:
“The big corporate outsider hoping to return the ndp to
its glory days is brought down by his own arrogance. I was thinking ndp
in the next election, but if he is in charge no freakin way.
I am sick of the ndp sense of entitlement. We don't need him. He went to alberta, he can stay there.”

NewsTalk 650 – “Putting A Name to the 'Over-zealous' Volunteer“
The name of the “over zealous” volunteer is apparently Earnest Morin (did some news outlets refer to the volunteer as “overly earnest”?  If not, they should start!), a former President of the Aboriginal New Democrats of Saskatchewan.  (You'd think someone who was that involved in the party would know the rules, no?)

Dwain Lingenfelter Announces First Nations Endorsement
Of course it came from a long-time supporter of his and was announced on the very day that the Hale Report was first supposed to be released.  Can you say “damage control”?

Brendan Pyle Link to Ryan's Campaign Videos “Liked” by Pat Atkinson
The Meili Campaign's Regina co-chair, Brendan Pyle, has done an awesome job of sharing a constant stream of Facebook links to relevant stories from across the web about all aspects of the NDP leadership race.  I was a bit surprised to see a recent link to Ryan's YouTube campaign videos “liked” by Pat Atkinson.   Obviously you can't read too much in this (I think the Agriculture video features a man named Roy Atkinson who may be her father?) but it was a small show of support for Ryan's campaign by someone who, at least based on their donations, is in the Deb Higgins camp. 

CBC Political Panel (mp3 link)
CBC Radio has a great podcast up featuring a discussion with Leader Post columnist Murray Mandryk and CBC reporter Stefani Langenegger moderated by CBC Regina morning host, Sheila Coles.  Line of the night goes to Langenegger who observes: “A good source told me that Brad Wall would rather run against Dwain Lingenfelter than Ryan Meili, a social democratic doctor living a social democratic life rather than a guy who, whether it's his fault or not, has more baggage ending the campaign than he did at the start.” 

Also in the podcast, there was a brief discussion about how Lingenfelter's scandal and the subsequent release of the Hale report managed to overshadow the final day of Lorne Calvert in the Legislature – one last blow to someone who was almost universally regarded as a genuine good guy.  (Mr. Calvert, it's not too late to change your mind!)

Accidental Deliberations Comment
I haven't seen this posted anywhere else or in the mainstream media but user Sunnyside, posted the following on Accidental Deliberations:

“On Tueday night all the leadership candidates were asked about their
commitment to the NDP, and how they will continue to support the NDP if
they lose. Deb Higgins, Ryan Meili and Yen Pederson all said they would
run for a seat. What did Link say, “I am only on leave from my job, I
will go back to my job”. Yes, that's right, he will leave the party and
go back to his big oil company in Alberta. Is that the kind of leader
the NDP need, or want.”

On top of that, Mr. Lingenfelter who has spent most of the last decade in Alberta working for an oil & gas company without even contributing in any way last year – financially or otherwise – to the party where he spent nearly twenty years of his life.  (In fact, rumours are that he was looking at the possibility of running for the Alberta Conservative Party while he lived in Calgary.)

Now to be fair, Ryan Meili didn't donate to the party either – though I'm willing to give him more leeway – not just because I'm a supporter of his but also because he's much younger than Mr. Lingenfelter, much less connected to the party and has spent much of the past eight years either as a student or doing international development work – both things that pretty much guarantee you'll have fewer resources than a high-paid oil executive.

RiderFans.com – “Lingenfelter Stuffing the Ballot Box“
You know you're getting attention from more than just the political junkies when you get seven pages on a Rider fan board! 

YouTube – “The Missing Link” – Saskatchewan Party Version and Mid-South Championship Wrestling Version

Oh, and only tangentially related to the topic at hand, the husband of one of my co-workers got a really good anti-Nuke Letter to the Editor printed in the Leader-Post today.

Posted 16 May 2009 § Main Page § Politics § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (0) °

An Open Letter to Premier Calvert

Hello Premier Calvert,

I know that you don't know me – I mean, we're Facebook friends but I see that you don't log in that often – so we don't really get a chance to chat.  So I thought a letter on my blog might be the best way to reach you.

First off, congrats on your final day in the Legislature today – I'm sure you're experiencing a huge range of emotions now that you're a free man for the first time since 1986.  Still, I know you're also  busy getting ready to hand over the reigns of the party in less than a month to only the ninth leader in the CCF/NDP's 77 year history and prepare for your new job at St. Andrew's College.   So I'll get right to the point. 

I strongly believe that you should endorse Ryan Meili as your choice for the new leader of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party. 

Now, I know that you and other party elders traditionally stay neutral in a race like this so that the best person may win without any hint of bias or controversy.  I don't remember Roy Romanow endorsing anyone the year that you won the leadership and I suspect this would hold true going back through the other various leadership races the NDP has held. 

Except that this year it feels like something different is happening and the stakes feel much higher than they've been in at least a generation when Mr. Romanow defeated Grant Devine after two years of disastrous Conservative rule in Saskatchewan. 

The leadership race's current front-runner, Dwain Lingenfelter claims he can hold Mr. Wall to one term but in his quest to win the leadership of the party at any cost, he may have done serious damage to the NDP and its chances for electoral success in 2011. 

The Hale Report has basically cleared Mr. Lingenfelter of any wrong-doing but as a new party member, I still find it extremely troubling that an experienced business executive (and the people around him) could let this happen, that the Lingenfelter campaign would pay $10 000 in small bills rather than cutting a single cheque for these purchased memberships “for ease of processing for DLC and provincial office” and most troubling, the underlying but unstated implication that those involved in this situation accept that that all First Nations people are destitute and can't afford their own memberships.  These are not the marks of a 21st century leader in my mind and not what the NDP needs at this critical juncture in its history.

On the other hand, we have a young candidate in Dr. Meili who is fairly new to the party but who is already showing (and has shown through his previous work in the far north, in your own constituency in Saskatoon's inner-city and in developing nations overseas) many of the qualities and convictions that have linked the NDP's leaders from Tommy Douglas to Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Blakeney to Mr. Romanow to yourself.  This is a very exclusive group and I believe Ryan Meili has so much more potential to add to the NDP's legacy, should he join that illustrious group than Mr. Lingenfelter.  (Meili's SaskPharm idea is just one example of the idealistic, innovative thinking that our greatest leaders have shown – brilliant for tying together so many strands of Saskatchewan life – the healthcare needs of an aging boomer population, value-added production of our agricultural products and all of the economic opportunities that will come from being involved in one of the world's most profitable sectors.) 

Ryan Meili is the reason I've joined the party, volunteered, given my time and expertise.  I know lots of other young people (and people who feel young again because of Ryan) who have similar stories.  Now it feels like, should Mr. Lingenfelter prevail on June 6, all of these gains will be lost if many of these young new members become disillusioned. 

I know that you're loyal to your party and the thought of endorsing a candidate will feel incredibly wrong.  But at the same time, I believe this is about more than politics, it is about no less than the future of our province.

Sometimes we have opportunities placed before us that show the depth of our character, our values and our principles.  I strongly encourage you to do the right thing for the party you've given much of your life to (and which has given you so much in return) by endorsing the one candidate who's best suited to lead the NDP into the future and continue its legacy of innovation and compassion for the people of this province. 

If you agree, please consider my proposal (and if you have any further thoughts, feel free to send me a message on Facebook! )

Thank-you,

Jason Hammond
Regina, SK

Posted 15 May 2009 § Main Page § Politics § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (3) °