The last and final word, I promise, on the NDP leadership convention

It’s hard to imagine that the NDP leadership vote last Saturday was anything but the worst of all possible worlds for both Dwain Lingenfelter and the party. Link got a 55-per-cent vote in the second and last round of balloting, and by most indications is going to have problems uniting a party that’s anxious for generational change and not certain that a 60-year-old oil executive has anything relevant to say about being on the lower end of the social and economic scale – the NDP’s heart and political home.

Firstly, imagine what would have happened if Link’s ‘Waterhengate’ had gone undetected? Well, Link would have had a first round victory by a substantial margin … instead, he goes to a second ballot and has to face the fact that a good chunk of his party will demand to have their voices heard, especially on nuclear energy. Lingenfelter is not going to go in as the Master of His Domain: he’s got to compromise, schmooze, and massage some wounded egos. He’s not good at that. Never has been. It never was in his job description: it never was what he was hired for.

Secondly, I’m more than a bit surprised about Higgins’ poor showing. I thought the coalition that elected Lorne Calvert would have done better. This, frankly, shouldn’t bode well for the NDP establishment.

And lastly, there’s some serious problems for the NDP in its ability to recruit members and attract new ones (membership – especially membership sales – is critical to the NDP because its volunteer base, theoretically, offsets the deeper financial pockets of the Sask. Party’s corporate backers). The NDP had about 18,000 members voting at the 2001 convention which brought Lorne Calvert to the premiers’ chair (Wikipedia): just over 9,000 voted on June 6, with another 3,600 members sitting this one out (Murray Mandryk, one of the few reasons to buy the Leader-Post).

So either there’s a number of NDP members who feel alienated from the leadership process of their own party … or there’s a couple more Waterhengate-style membership sale fiascoes the party doesn’t want to talk about.

All in all, the NDP has a lot of work to do in order to convince Saskatchewanians that they’re ready for governing this province. A lot of people within the NDP think that getting re-elected is merely a matter of marching. I don’t think they really understand how the psychology of this province has changed: and they’re unable or unwilling to contemplate the changes that they need to make in order to take on Brad Wall in a meaningful way.