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Liberal Deathmatch, Day 4: The Final Countdown |
| December 2nd, 2006 under General. [ Comments: none ]
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There is no place better to be, and be liberal, than on this convention floor. A pin dropping could have been heard as the results were announced, and just as the Dion results were read the place went wild. The floor, more that I thought it would be, was absolutely awesome.
Anyhow, the Rae crowd seemed understandably saddened and, yet despite having been officially released to do as they see fit, there was a whole lot of green scarfs starting to show up on the neck’s of people wearing Rae’s red tshirts. Iggy’s people immediately began handing out a page with all of the polls on electability from the last few months, comparing Dion and Iggy. They are, the Iggy person said, just information and free from spin. Right. It says a lot, I think, that right away the Iggy people started offering negative information about Dion, and the legions in green were more than happy to chant and party while waiting to go and vote.
Dion, as will be discussed at length in the papers over the coming days, has over come a lot to be one round of voting away from being leader of the Liberal party of Canada. Not a whole lot of caucus support, not a whole lot of money, criticisms of his english, his record in Quebec, and all of that good stuff. I criticized the idea of momentum a couple of days ago, but boy do you learn to know when to feel it.
Wayne and I talked with a bunch of people after the fact. We’ll try to get it up shortly, but no guarantees.
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Liberal Deathmatch, Day 4: Update |
| December 2nd, 2006 under General. [ Comments: none ]
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More at progblog.
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Liberal Deathmatch: Day 4 |
| December 2nd, 2006 under General. [ Comments: none ]
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Below, a spontaneous Dryden demonstration
 The results have been up for a while now, and its really interesting to see just how close the race for third was- 2 votes is insane, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens this afternoon. More shocking, I think, was that Martha Hall Findlay apparently picked up more than 90 ex-officio delegates. What’ll be more interesting is to see how much of that support follows her to Dion.
The Buzz is pretty cool on the floor right now, and the hospitality suites last night were absolutely electric. There was a real sense at both of the Rae parties I went to had a real positive sense that they were on the way to the top of the ticket. I’m not sure how useful the Volpe pickup was, but it is another endorsement, even if much of the delegates go elsewhere. Kennedy stopped by one hotel party just before it got shut down, and Dion stopped by another at the Delta.
Now, off to the floor!
Rumour Mill: Dryden to Iggy. If true, so much for the nice speech on the Nation motion last week.
UPDATE: Or maybe Dryden to Dion. Do you know what the best thing about crazy rumours is? They’re Craaaa-zy.
Updated Update: Dryden to Rae.
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Leadership Deathmatch Day 3: Queuing for Voting begins |
| December 1st, 2006 under General. [ Comments: none ]
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Apparently voting on the first ballot has yet to begin, not getting started for another 30 minutes.
It’s going to be a long Saturday.
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Liberal Deathmatch Day 3: Get ready for delegate speculation |
| December 1st, 2006 under General. [ Comments: none ]
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Using Cerberus’ Numbers and the elected delegate list on the LPC website, we get the following:
| candidate |
attending |
| iggy |
1060.29 |
| rae |
688.39 |
| kennedy |
623.2 |
| dion |
549.69 |
| Dryden |
161.84 |
| Brison |
155.94 |
| Volpe |
85.07 |
| Hall Findlay
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15.18 |
Note that none of this includes ex-officio support.
(After I do this, I discover that Stephen Taylor has done the same. Meh)
Now, the caveats on accuracy. Rumours are rumours, so take them with a grain of salt. However, Martha Hall Findlay’s camp has helpfully put out a list of delegates at the convention, and a quick count indicates that there are 14. So, I think that it is reasonable to treat them within the realm of the possible.
Some thoughts on this: Really, the order is the same as on the DSM weekend, though Kennedy has moved closer to Rae. Kennedy seems to be really well organized on the floor, so that strength will probably play out pretty well. Talking to a lot of people, there seems to be a strong feeling of Dion momentum, though I never really know what that actually means. It’ll be important to see if it can keep up after the first ballot results are announced later this evening. Expect it to be very later, as voting seems to be taking forever.
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Liberal Deathmatch, Day 2: An update with the perspective of time. |
| December 1st, 2006 under General. [ Comments: none ]
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 Last nights tribute to Paul Martin was in keeping with the previous night’s festivities: overly long, leading into a nice speech. The actual acts were a bit nicer, with a acceptable-for-my-mom racy opera singer, a nice set by Colin James, and an absolutely, albeit unintentionally, hilarious MC who’s French managed to be worse than mine. That is, as they say in la belle province, a feat.
Martin’s speech was actually pretty good, and its unfortunate that he didn’t deliver more of those during the last election. At times, pumping up the tenure as Prime Minister felt like a bit of a stretch, but the focus on his tenure as Finance Minister was pretty good.
The crowd was
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Fellow Travellers 
