It’s not a detail, it’s not housecleaning; it changes the way the party works. It says to everybody who want s to join our party, ‘If you join our party you get to vote for the man or woman who may be the prime minister of your country—so join the party.’
I'm a day late to this story, but Scott is right: having the current party leader endorse OMOV (One Member One Vote) for future leadership races is an important step in the process of dragging the federal Libs into the new millennium. Since OMOV is relatively easy to administer, and can be conducted electronically--presumably each voting member's ballot will have an ID# that tells which riding they are from and, therefore, how their vote should be weighted--hopefully this leads to the elimination of delegated conventions.
I've been telling myself that, if some version of OMOV passed, I would pitch out for a party Membership, so maybe the Libs will be getting a few bucks out of me in the near future.
Mind you, if OMOV goes down to defeat, does this count as Iggy's 1st policy disaster?
Mind you, if OMOV goes down to defeat, does this count as Iggy's 1st policy disaster? - only to Liberals.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't know other major parties have already entered the 21st century politics of one person one vote for party leader federally.
Shit...I spent too much time editing my comment and Moonbat Jan the Dipper Troll soiled the comment sections.
ReplyDeleteFuck the hell off, Moonie, or I'll go over and troll the shit out of that thing you call a blog.
Mind you, if OMOV goes down to defeat, does this count as Iggy's 1st policy disaster?
Depends on which talking point emerges as the fittest.
This is a move that's one convention too late. I'm pretty sure Iggy is for it because he doesn't see it as having an impact on his short term goals. But that's just the usual political calculus.
I don't care about this anymore. I've come to conclusion that, for at least another five years, no real change is possible within the current political process and that engaged citizens have to look elsewhere.
Of course, if CanWest goes bankrupt tomorrow, my mood might change...
It isn't a detail, and it isn't just housekeeping, true, but "changing the way the party works" is simply not accurate. Changing the way the party WILL work in one (very important) process some way (hopefully a long way) down the line, is more accurate.
ReplyDeleteThe Party has much more significant work to do to change its culture, now, soon and before an election. It would appear as if the Change Commission has gotten it right and effectively zeroed in on the mood, wishes and desires of the "grassroots".
I vote for Ti-Guy:
ReplyDelete"This is a move that's one convention too late. I'm pretty sure Iggy is for it because he doesn't see it as having an impact on his short term goals. But that's just the usual political calculus."
Yup. That's what I was going to write.
Iggy. The great democrap.
jan - "If you don't know other major parties have already entered the 21st century politics of one person one vote for party leader federally."
ReplyDeleteIn 1992, the Liberals were the first federal political party to allow members the right to vote directly for their leader, albeit through a proportional delegated process. It remains the only political party which allows its members to vote directly on the Leader's leadership after every losing election.
Alexa McDonough's leadership didn't even feature a secret ballot, but rather a push-button machine at every table (allowing union bosses to view and enforce how their people voted).
Jack Layton's leadership was (like all NDP votes) subject to a 25% union top up, and granted disproportionate clout to urban ridings.
The Conservatives only leadership race had such low turnout that they refused to publicly release riding results.
Yes, the Liberal party has work to do, but people who live in glass houses should be remiss to throw stones.
If delegation of decision making is inherently anti-democratic, then I guess there's no need to have a Parliament, is there?
Mark makes some pretty good points about the merits of our current system and other leadership-oriented processes (such as the review - which by the way is exactly (without the preferential ballot part, of course) the WOMOV proposal of the executive).
ReplyDeleteSo it's a good point that the Party has been fairly progressive in this area...but does that mean that another progressive move (to WOMOV) solves all of our democratic deficit problems?
Of course not, but as I've told Mark (Watton), I'm not sure anyone is trying to say the move to weighted OMOV is the great cure-all. But, I'm not going to skewer OMOV just because we haven't moved on other moves we can make.
ReplyDeleteThe democratic deficit afflicts all Canadians, not just Liberals.
ReplyDeletePeople will become engaged in democratic politics again when they start believing that it means something. The fact that after three years, Dean Del Mastro is still abusing his franking privilege and sending me propaganda to my home in a Toronto riding just underscores the fact that if we can't even get little things like that sorted out, what chances are there that they'll listen to us about anything else?
As of yesterday, Apr 27, I've received 10 tenpercenters, one of which was a 14 page booklet of crap from my Cons MP. I threw out the first one and am saving the rest and plan to ask the Speaker of the House if this is abuse of the privilege. 10 in 4 months?
ReplyDeleteJanfromtheBruce - such a wealth of knowledge to share.....LOL. Hey, wasn't there a question as to Layton's election as leader over Blaikie and fixed scores or something?
Scott,
ReplyDeleteNo one (well other than the misguided youth), certainly not I, is suggesting that OMOV be scuttled; it's change that should happen. It's just all this fuss about it being "historical" constitutional change and the most important thing we're doing at this convention for the future of the party is a bit grating.
I'm kinda thinking that's a bit of where Mark is coming from too.