Leadership 2012 Roundup

Not surprisingly, the last week has seen the NDP's leadership candidates push their campaigns into high gear for the last couple of months of the race. So let's take a quick look at what's developed in the first week of 2012.

- Niki Ashton spoke to Andy Radia about her definition of "new politics" - noting in particular that it means building on the NDP's existing principles rather than discarding them:

I believe the [NDP] needs to use its principles as a guide; principles that led us to the historic success that we have today as official opposition.

[In the last election] we saw a record number of Canadians that haven't voted NDP before or hadn't gotten involved in politics before come out and respond to Jack Layton's message and our message.

And I think that's a sign—if we continue to build on who we are as a party and really reach out to regions where we have grown tremendously, like Quebec and Western Canada, we will continue to grow.

- Nathan Cullen questioned the ethics of the Cons' shilling for the oil industry when climate change poses a threat to people around the world.

- Paul Dewar rolled out the endorsements of NUPGE National President James Clancy and BC MLA Mable Elmore.

- Thomas Mulcair made an Alberta swing through Calgary, Red Deer and Edmonton, unveiling the endorsement of former AFL president Reg Baskin and earning positive reviews from David Climenhaga. And he then added BC MLA Leonard Krog's endorsement today.

- Peggy Nash won the endorsements of Sarah Polley and MP Dany Morin in advance of what she's touting as a major national event tomorrow.

- Romeo Saganash unveiled a blog post focusing on how the NDP can do better for families than the Harper Cons, while also seeing a flurry of Twitter activity on CETA and the economy.

- Martin Singh earned a Hill Times article pointing out that his base looks to be concentrated in the Sikh community across Canada rather than in the Atlantic region.

- And rounding out the candidate activity review, Brian Topp unveiled another big Saskatchewan endorsement, this time from former premier Lorne Calvert. But his efforts to win over the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix look to have been at best a modest success, as one has to wonder how proud his supporters can be of Les MacPherson's column in particular (featuring such prominent messages as "almost bearable" and "I probably will never vote for the federal NDP") along with an editorial that doesn't say much about Topp personally.

Meanwhile, plenty of candidates made news appearances or noise of their own on the economy, particularly when it came to the Electro-Motive lockout.

On the pundit side, Sylvia Bashevkin commented on the need for Ashton and Nash to offer some substantive difference from their competitors. [Update: And Ashton justly responded by pointing out the need for substance applies equally to all candidates.] John Ibbitson is the latest pundit to frame his own lack of knowledge about what's going on as a criticism of the NDP and its leadership process. And Justin Ling reviews the policies unveiled so far in the leadership campaign.