Leadership 2009 Linkage

With the Lingenfelter membership controversy having managed to earn the Saskatchewan NDP leadership race far more attention over the last week-plus than it had received before, reporting and commentary is starting to turn up more regularly. So here's the latest...

Murray Mandryk writes about how the leadership campaign looks to be bringing about a generational shift within the NDP. Which seems true enough until he tries to apply the same point to to the Wall government as well:

In fact, we might just have seen an entire new generation of Saskatchewan politicians taking ownership of their respective political parties.

Just in case there's any doubt, ownership of the Saskatchewan Party remains now in corporate hands where it's been from the beginning.

Meanwhile, the Star Phoenix editorial board laments the membership controversy as a potential threat to Saskatchewan's political scene as a whole on the assumption that it "will weaken an already weakened party and could result in an even weaker legislature". What's missing from that statement (aside from a thesaurus) is that there's no indication that the leadership race as a whole has done anything but to strengthen the NDP - especially based on the infusion of new blood discussed by Mandryk.

Finally, it may not come as much of a surprise in light of his appearance in Ryan Meili's video on First Nations. But the Meadow Lake Progress reports that former MLA, cabinet minister and leadership contestant Maynard Sonntag has publicly endorsed Meili in the leadership race.