How the NDP frustrates me

[punked]

Sounds to me that they had already nominated a candidate.

[cybercoma]

And what would that be? If you are guessing I have a criminal record, guess again. In my present job, I work for a private company that deals with various levels of government. As such, I had to be placed through a background check. I presently have Level II security clearance. I have no debts that I am not paying down, so therefore, I could probably attain Top Secret security clearance if necessary.

It's funny you would bring that up when I didn't even suggest it.

[cybercoma]

Then why don't you spell it out what you think doesn't add up? Otherwise, zip.

We're here to discuss....not guess what's on your mind! That's what a forum is all about.

Adhominem and drive-by smears lowers the standard of this board!

Care to explain how that was an ad hominem or a smear of any kind?

[punked]

Molly, you're just the right person to shed some light on this!

Can you run through how the process worked at the riding association you were with? I'm wondering about things like...

-when the candidate was actually selected. In most ridings, the candidate is usually chosen long before an election is called, isn't it?

-how's the decision actually made? a vote among party members in the riding? is there a campaign, a debate, that sort of thing?

-vetting. What did your office do to check on the qualifications of the candidates? Was there some checking done to make sure the nominee wasn't somebody with personal ...issues... that would embarrass the party?

I was under the impression that the major parties have a fairly organized process of how candidates are chosen, and all of the stuff we're hearing seems to kind of fly in the face of that.

-k

The NDP has a process that must be followed to select a candidate. First a Candidate search committee has to be struck up. These people go out and talk community members asking them if they would consider running. My committee which I sat on talked 100 people. This has to be done and a report must be filed with Ottawa before you can actually select a Candidate.

Then you have a nomination meeting of which notice is sent all members in the ridding a month before the meeting so that every who wants to run can declare their intent and start signing up members. A week before the meeting nominations are closed so that everyone who has put their name forward knows who and who isn't running.

Then you have a nomination meeting where members from the ridding vote on who their nominee will be. That is the long and short of it. There are some rules and regulations but that is how it goes. I also believe you MUST be a member for a month BEFORE the nomination. Sounds to me this guy WASN'T a members so they tossed him to the curb because those are the rules.

[Molly]

Molly, you're just the right person to shed some light on this!

Can you run through how the process worked at the riding association you were with? I'm wondering about things like...

-when the candidate was actually selected. In most ridings, the candidate is usually chosen long before an election is called, isn't it?

-how's the decision actually made? a vote among party members in the riding? is there a campaign, a debate, that sort of thing?

-vetting. What did your office do to check on the qualifications of the candidates? Was there some checking done to make sure the nominee wasn't somebody with personal ...issues... that would embarrass the party?

I was under the impression that the major parties have a fairly organized process of how candidates are chosen, and all of the stuff we're hearing seems to kind of fly in the face of that.

-k

Riding associations. For a few years, I was working on a provincial, not constituency level, and had a hand in nominations ranging from winnable/hotly sought-after to 'Are we going to have to float someone in just to have a name on the ballot?', a la Quebec NDP.

Every party has their own rules, and NDP is one party I have never worked with or for, so you can ask Punked, maybe, what their peculiarities are... but in general terms:

The more lead time you can give a candidate, the better. Yes, a year is marvellous. A week or more into the campaign is a disaster.

The constituency level seal of approval is critically improtant, 'cause those are the folks who are going to have to provide the financial wherewithall, and do the work. And, you absolutely want to get all the speachifying/rally-the-troops/rah-rah noise you can possible milk a nomination for (advertizing) ... so the more formal/official /stratified you can make it, the better. Having to book a rink to hold the people, check everyones membership credentials with a magnifying glass, use a secret ballot and automatic recounts, have nominators and three seconders per candidate, start it with a parade and end it with fireworks etc. etc. etc.. the more the better...

or it can be reduced to the 5 folks who have carried the party banner through no man's land forever, flipping coins in the pub for 'odd-man-out and buy a round' to determine which of them loses, and must let his name be placed on the ballot. Whatever extreme might be the conditions du jour, yes, yes, yes it is a very organized process with hoops to jump and conditions to be met.

Least desireable of all possible options is to have the leader appoint candidates from wherever just to fill in that blank space.

Vetting is largely done by way of the formal nomination process, as in lots of dogs will offer to run, but the locals generally know them, and refuse to nominate them. If there is no such local expertise guiding that decision, then 'who you know' does definitely stand, because anyone recommending you is sticking their neck out and putting all of their own work and credibility at risk. You establish who and what you are through time and performance. It is better to nominate your sweet old Mama than someone you don't know/ or who can't be vouched for.

[cybercoma]

if someone wandered into the committee rooms I was tending a few days after a couple of days after an election was called, resume and nomination papers in hand to apply for the position of 'candidate', I'd probably tell them as politely as I could possibly muster that they were 'not qualified', too.

I also believe you MUST be a member for a month BEFORE the nomination.

The story is beginning to add up now.

[kimmy]

Thanks, punked and Molly. That is excellent information!

In this new interview with Ruth-Ellen it says she was asked by the party to run in the riding. She works at Carleton in Ottawa, so she must be from the Ottawa-Gatineau region, but the riding she won is northeast of Montreal. It does say she's been with the party for years. Maybe she expressed an interest at some point and they looked her up when they found they were short of candidates.

-k

[Molly]

In this new interview with Ruth-Ellen ...

-k

It sounds as though she is conducting herself with remarkable poise.. which further suggests that she is not such an outlandish choice after all.

Good for her.

[Molly]

The story is beginning to add up now.

Did you perhaps wonder whose signatures our aspiring candidate lined up, and what riding they might reside in?

[Scotty]

Did you perhaps wonder whose signatures our aspiring candidate lined up, and what riding they might reside in?

I don't think the candidate had anything to do with that. That would be the local riding volunteers basically approaching anyone who would say yes. And why not sign? I would have. If someone wants to run, more power to them. Besides, it was the NDP, so no one would have though it very important to check credentials. It's not like she had the slightest chance of winning, after all!

[Molly]

I don't think the candidate had anything to do with that. That would be the local riding volunteers basically approaching anyone who would say yes. And why not sign? I would have. If someone wants to run, more power to them. Besides, it was the NDP, so no one would have though it very important to check credentials. It's not like she had the slightest chance of winning, after all!

......'aspiring candidate' = Pegasus

..... who claims to have gotten 100+ signatures, presumeably endorsements of his nomination

......while living in Quebec City

..... but hoping to be a candidate in (best guess, Mount Royal in) Montreal.

[Evening Star]

It sounds as though she is conducting herself with remarkable poise.. which further suggests that she is not such an outlandish choice after all.

Good for her.

Never seemed all that outlandish to me, especially considering that she's going to be an Opposition backbencher. Besides, I have fond memories of Oliver's Pub.

[Topaz]

It will be interesting when the House returns and see which side ACTS the mature, maybe the young NDP's will show the government up.

[cybercoma]

Did you perhaps wonder whose signatures our aspiring candidate lined up, and what riding they might reside in?

I honestly didn't wonder anything. It just didn't make sense that he would have all of this experience and more importantly dedication to the party, only to be turned down as candidate. Something didn't add up. That's all.

[pegasus]

Pegasus, just curious....

Have you always supported the NDP....or were you affiliated with any other party?

Why did you choose to run for the NDP?

Do you plan to run as an independent in the next election?

I have always supported the NDP. I am not affiliated with any other party. And this is why I chose to run for the NDP. I also chose to run for the NDP because I figured I'd lose. I just really wanted to get a better idea as to how the election process worked. Under regular circumstances, I probably wouldn't even complain, but knowing that if I would have run in the community that I wanted to run in, and won, such as the person who did run in my community, I would not be sitting here in my one bedroom apartment, waiting for my call from work where I have to go in and service the very people who are now MPs.

I don't plan to run as an independent next election.

Edited May 7, 2011 by pegasus

[pegasus]

Did you ask what specifically made you unqualified? If not, you should.

I never asked. As I said earlier, I'm pretty green at this. So I just figured they already had more qualified candidates waiting in the wings.

[pegasus]

The NDP were clearly using these hopeless ridings to run females so they could boast about the % of female candidates they were running. That's part of it anyway. But there's more. Was there a local riding association in that riding? If so, you don't just show up and offer to be a candidate. The riding association usually chooses someone from amongst its members. Either that or HQ parachutes someone there they want to give a chance to. In some ridings, clearly, they took just about anything they could get because they thought they were hopeless. But I'm sure not all the ridings, even the hopeless ones, had mere placeholders. Parties sometimes use these ridings to train candidates who might have a shot elsewhere. They get some experience in running an election campaign and the party gets to see them in action to determine if they're worth putting into a better riding next time around.

It could have been that if you had offered yourself as a candidate in one of the other ridings you'd have been accepted because they had no one there and wound up using people of limited qualifications. Or maybe there was some other reason. Maybe the person didn't like your looks, or thought there was something else about you likely to cause controversy or trouble.

I offered my services in any riding available, and at the time, there were many. I was told I was unqualified less than one week after the initial campaigning begun. (Yes...I really wanted to do this) I even told the person that if someone was already chosen for my riding, then I would like to run in any other riding, anywhere in Canada, not just Quebec.

[Oleg Bach]

To qualify you must be 19 years old - a bar maid who likes to gamble in Vegas...and really have no smarts that might be noticed. Being a candidate for the NDP is difficult ...Much like the hiring policy for American police officers - You must have a compliant attitude and a slighly below average IQ. NDP are like a huge corporation..and like all modern corporations they do not want the brilliant - they want mediocre..THATs what make the beastly machine run...thousands of compliant ants...who build a huge hill for no apparent reason...Perhaps you seemed assertive and reasonable....You would have had the same dismal results if you applied to work withing a multi-national corporation - YOU are NOT privledged---so no privledge is granted - and having said that you are overly qualified to be a drone - sorry...try the conservative party next time - It's even worse.

[pegasus]

Sounds like bullshit to me. Candidates are determined by nominations from within the riding association and then the membership votes to determine the winning candidate. Qualifications are nice and usefull but can very well be ignored by the membership during a vote for any number of reasons - the primary one being 'that guys an idiot!'

It isnt a 'job' to be applied for.

How does one go about becoming a candidate for a political party? Until recently, the NDP were non-existant here in Quebec. I have been a supporter of the party since I was 18. I have been a member of this party for the last 20 years. (And you have to pay to be a member of the NDP)

Speaking as someone who's done more constituency work than an awful lot of people, and who has had the unfortunate task of helping to recruit a sacrificial lamb candidate for an unwinnable seat..... if someone wandered into the committee rooms I was tending a few days after a couple of days after an election was called, resume and nomination papers in hand to apply for the position of 'candidate', I'd probably tell them as politely as I could possibly muster that they were 'not qualified', too.

Why?

[pegasus]

The NDP has a process that must be followed to select a candidate. First a Candidate search committee has to be struck up. These people go out and talk community members asking them if they would consider running. My committee which I sat on talked 100 people. This has to be done and a report must be filed with Ottawa before you can actually select a Candidate.

Then you have a nomination meeting of which notice is sent all members in the ridding a month before the meeting so that every who wants to run can declare their intent and start signing up members. A week before the meeting nominations are closed so that everyone who has put their name forward knows who and who isn't running.

Then you have a nomination meeting where members from the ridding vote on who their nominee will be. That is the long and short of it. There are some rules and regulations but that is how it goes. I also believe you MUST be a member for a month BEFORE the nomination. Sounds to me this guy WASN'T a members so they tossed him to the curb because those are the rules.

I am a member of the NDP party. I have been for the last 20 years.

[pegasus]

Thanks, punked and Molly. That is excellent information!

In this new interview with Ruth-Ellen it says she was asked by the party to run in the riding. She works at Carleton in Ottawa, so she must be from the Ottawa-Gatineau region, but the riding she won is northeast of Montreal. It does say she's been with the party for years. Maybe she expressed an interest at some point and they looked her up when they found they were short of candidates.

-k

Short of candidates? Asked by the party? I could have run in that community and I speak French. The riding I wanted to run in is not far from this riding.

[Oleg Bach]

You need an appointment with a high ranking banker...lawyer type - nothing gets by the lawyers at the bank...not even wanna be politicals. Who ever controls the money controls the nation..that's common sense - also....it might be a good idea for you to get in touch with Liz May and quietly counsel her...at least you will have a voice via a second party...BUT most of those who want to be politicans want the glory of public life - the spot light - ego centric go getters....Those with real power don't care if they are noticed or not...actors in film are just like politicians - they will say any thing - do anything just to be in the lime light...The problem with this type of personality is that most are not qualified. We have an over abundance of dopes running the nation...and most just want to be a big deal....

[ninjandrew]

From the Globe and Mail:

‘The NDP’s Quebec caucus has normal people in it’ – Yep, that’s true. The NDP’s Quebec caucus is not made up of corporate lawyers who look on their party as a job fair.

Instead, the new team is made up of former cabinet ministers, municipal leaders, diplomats, artists, businesspeople… and some young people, including young women making their way through the early stages of their careers, just like most young women do.

Certainly a more positive and less dramatic way to look at it.

[Smallc]

Short of candidates? Asked by the party? I could have run in that community and I speak French. The riding I wanted to run in is not far from this riding.

Then you should have participated in the party and got yourself nominated. You didn't. You could have ran as an independent new democrat. You din't. Too bad, so sad.

[pegasus]

......'aspiring candidate' = Pegasus

..... who claims to have gotten 100+ signatures, presumeably endorsements of his nomination

......while living in Quebec City

..... but hoping to be a candidate in (best guess, Mount Royal in) Montreal.

West end Montreal, NDG/Cote-St.Luc/Montreal West riding, that is and yes, the signatures came from those who live mostly here in Quebec City, save for about 20 friends and family from the riding I wanted to run in. I was informed that the signaatures don't have to be from people in the riding you have to run in.