The morning after

As mentioned last night, here are a few candidate-by-candidate thoughts on the part of the NDP leadership debate liveblogged below.

I'll note to start off with that all of the candidates performed well in providing substantive answers to the questions asked. But the degree of difficulty for the forum looked to be relatively low: the last few questions at least dealt solely with topics that had already received ample public discussion from all camps, and there wasn't any direct opportunity for candidates to follow up on their opponents' answers. Which meant that the forum sounds like it was oriented largely toward stump answers rather than quick thinking.

That said, there are still a few individual notes worth pointing out.

Let's start off with Deb Higgins, whose response to the question about party renewal was substantially sharper than was reflected in my live-blogging. After Meili mentioned going door-to-door to sell memberships in his answer, Higgins began her response with an admonition that an experienced politician would know there's more to a door-to-door effort than selling memberships alone.

Of course, there isn't much doubt that Higgins' campaign is focusing on experience and commitment as her main themes. But it's still noteworthy that her most brusque critique seems to have been directed at Meili rather than at Lingenfelter on a question where the latter was no less open to criticism. And it's worth wondering whether that might reflect a strategy aimed more at trying to win and hold the #2 position on a first ballot than on trying to build up enough of an opposition effect to hold Lingenfelter short of a majority.

As for Lingenfelter himself, he was obviously the most polished speaker of the lot, yet sounded remarkably wonkish in detailing some of the possibilities for oil sands development. But there was one less than pleasant surprise as well, as Lingenfelter had more trouble than any other candidate limiting his responses to the time allotted to him - which I wouldn't have expected from the front-runner at this stage of the game.

For Meili, the most interesting deviation from the message I've heard so far was his choice to close with a mention of his endorsements - which may reflect the difficulties of building a campaign in the face of limited media coverage. Ideally I'd think a candidate would much prefer to have endorsements speak for themselves, while being able to spend as much forum time as possible letting those in attendance meet the candidate personally rather than hearing how others have responded. But given how spotty any coverage of those endorsements has been, it's probably understandable that Meili has built them into his own message rather than counting on the audience having heard of them otherwise.

Finally, Pedersen's closing statement was one which definitely demands some analysis. I tend toward the view that analogies between oneself and past party heroes are bound to sound at least somewhat forced even at the best of times, and Pedersen's attempt to equate himself with Tommy Douglas was particularly so.

But there's one part of the analogy which may make for a significant message for the balance of the campaign. Pedersen's wording about being "called to action by faith" would seem to offer an solid foundation from which to reach out to progressive religious voters. And in a campaign where Pedersen likely can't count on party establishment support, an outreach effort toward church leaders who may not see much of a direct appeal in the other candidates' messages may make for the best possible opportunity to bring enough support into the fold to keep him competitive in the lead-up to the June convention.