Paul Dewar has been the quintessential middle-of-the-pack candidate thus far in the NDP's leadership race, combining one obvious weakness with a strong organization and personal appeal to place himself within the second tier of contenders. So where will he place as the campaign draws to a close?
1. What direction will he set for the NDP?
As with most of the party's veteran MPs there's little doubt about Dewar's commitment to progressive principles, with his "more caring Canada" theme serving as a useful central message. And he's also been able to point to a relatively detailed plan to get the NDP organized from day one after the leadership convention.
But Dewar's policy offerings have been inconsistent at times, ranging from terse bullet points (see for example his urban strategy) to plans made up almost entirely of low-content aspirational language (see e.g. point 4 here) alongside his more thorough proposals.
2. How will he respond when pushed off course?
Dewar has been strong in dealing with challenges (subject to the language issues described below), notably by turning the somewhat controversial announcement of Charlie Angus as a provisional deputy leader into "Charlie envy" on the part of his competitors. And there's no reason to think he'd have any trouble responding similarly in a leadership capacity.
3. How do his personal traits affect his ability to reach the destination implied by the answer to question 1?
The obvious concern here is that Dewar's French is still a work in progress: he's been able to identify topics and provide effective basic statements with increasing ease, but still looks to be a long way from having the ability to process, analyze and speak to complex policy issues.
Otherwise, Dewar has shown plenty of personal appeal in own-event settings while becoming more comfortable with debate formats since the start of the campaign.
Conclusion
Dewar's strategy over the second half of the campaign has plainly been to try to push ahead of Brian Topp in order to position himself for later ballots. And based on the polling numbers available to date, he seems to have done fairly well on that front. But I have him falling just short of Topp on all three considerations - meaning that he'll place similarly on my ballot.
Dewar looks okay but I think he's got to move away from his inside the beltway messaging to gain support. During the last debate he talked a lot about hiring organizers and reallocating resources. I don't think regular voters care about these internal machinations, and this insider stuff is a huge turn-off for me. This is why I put Dewar near the bottom of my rankings.
ReplyDeleteThis comment applies to your current Paul Dewar & Peggy Nash posts...and your future Niki Ashton & Martin Singh posts.
ReplyDeleteOne of the clever things about this leadership contest is just how much it's raised the profile of the "front bench" NDP MP's. It's forced the media to actually dig into these folks histories, consider their skills, and basically show a minimum of respect towards them.
Afer the election. the press were totally uneducated about any of the NDP MP's (forget the new crop of Quebec ones). All they could do was play "hey, I don't recognize that guy" on Twitter.
I remember one CBC panel discussion where the commentators were asked to name various "MP's to watch for" from all the parties. After dwelling on tons of Conservative & Liberal names...the last few seconds were reserved for a terse mention of Peggy Nash.
Regardless of who wins, these leadership contenders will return to parliament hill with a higher profile & stature.