Thursday, March 02, 2006

Mmm...Economic Pie

A lot of people were surprised to see Reg Alcock (and Rod Zimmer apparently) step up and support Belinda Stronach, no doubt making her one of the candidates to beat in Manitoba.

Well, it shouldn't be surprising. Consider the last candidate Reg Alcock was reportedly urging to run for Liberal leadership:

Don't go holding your breath. True to form, the Liberals don't appear to have anyone from that half of the country who is seriously interested in the job. What's more, the Liberals who fancy themselves as the one true national party don't appear concerned about the spectre of yet another leadership contest without a westerner on the ballot.

Oh sure, Reg Alcock was trying to persuade David Emerson to run for the job when he was still a Liberal.

posted by calgarygrit at 11:38 a.m.

28 Comments:

  • Well, Reg's unfortumate pick aside, is there a serious, possibly serious, or even semi-srious candidate West of Toronto? When was the last serious Liberal leadership candidate, let alone leader, from West of Toronto (and by more than 200 miles, just in case)?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:44 a.m.  

  • Good point Anonymous.

    We do have a Western candidate: Gerard Kennedy. Born,educated and worked in Western Canada before being recruited to run Toronto's Food Bank.

    Reg should have went with the only real candidate with a Western background. Manitobans will choose their local guy Gerard over Belinda.

    There are some things that Belinda cannot buy.


    Go Gerard!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:52 a.m.  

  • If Gerard is a "Western" candidate simply because he was born there, does that make Harper a "Toronto" politician? After all, Stephen Harper spent most of his life in Toronto.

    By Blogger Michael Fox, at 12:02 p.m.  

  • Painting Kennedy as a westerner? Maybe they can get the same marketing firm the Brits used to convince us John Cabot was one of theirs.

    As for Alcock...is their a board seat coming available at Magna or what?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:12 p.m.  

  • TT,

    Stephen Harper chose to promote himself as a Westerner, his choice.

    Kennedy has strong ties to the West.

    He is both an Easterner and Westerner and has made public impacts in his career on both sides of the country.

    Can't recall any specific public impact that Harper made during his time in the East.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:13 p.m.  

  • Is Belinda asking for political suicide, Allcock the most overbearing, arrogant,self-centered Cabinet Minister in a dishonest Liberal government,and she wants him to be her campagian manager, give us a break-- this guy couldn't even buy his re-election with taxpayers money.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:24 p.m.  

  • Reg Alcock, one of the best organizer's within the Liberal Party today, teamed with the greatest Liberal Fundraiser in the party's history. Don't rule out Belinda yet....

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:54 p.m.  

  • I am surprised...Rod Zimmer's really really cool...I don't know why he'd support....Belinda...for me its Gerrard...go Gerrard Go

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:00 p.m.  

  • Alcock will be great but, his staff are second rate. Nakina Sankar, Lise Jolie Coeur- were not hired because of any skills. Belinda will have to rely on her own staff.
    Rod Zimmer will be one of the key organizer's for her, I hear his guy is ok.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:42 p.m.  

  • Alcock is one of the best organizers in Manitoba and Zimmer is their best fundraiser.

    With that team, Belinda will do very well there.

    It sounds like she's got a few Quebec kingpins in place and via Magna and Peterson, she has a strong Ontario team.

    I wouldn't count this girl out yet,

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:51 p.m.  

  • Rod Zimmer is a decent fundraiser, but he's not an organizer that can do anything on the ground. And now that he has his sneate seat I doubt he will even be that motivated. He will likely just wine and dine some Young Liberals and tell them to go sign a few hundread people up from their high school.

    Alcock and his staff will be counted on to bully people in province to come around to Belinda. 80% of the riding assocation heads are still personal picks that Alcock and company rammed down the parties throats in 2002/03, so Alcock jumping in bed with Belinda will make her very hard to beat in Manitoba.

    Between Pat Ferguson, Nakina Sankar, Robin Lameraux, and the rest of the Alcock gang, they will do what they did for Martin back in 2003, namely 99% of the delegates.

    Even though Alcock lost he is still the boss of Manitoba. Neville is useless and just waiting for her full pension to kick in, Simard may be the dumbest MP in Ottawa and Keeper owes her seat to Alcock and Robin Lameraux making her nothing more than Alcock's puppet.

    Is Richard Diamond and the rest of the YLC on board with Belinda too? Richard does take his marching order from Reg.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:26 p.m.  

  • Can Llyod Axworthy please step up and tell Reg and company to fuck off and let the adults run things again in this province.

    All Alcock has done in Manitoba is lose us seats in every election (even his own!) and ram Martin down our throats.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:34 p.m.  

  • Kind of tangential to this particular post, but I think whatever one's views of Stronach's likely candidacy, I think it'd be best if we not call her "Belinda."

    It may be a very common and not ill-intentioned usage, but it's fairly well known that female politicians very often get 'the first name treatment' in a way that subtly undermines the seriousness of their public persona. Sure, we call male politicians by their first name plenty, but not the majority of the time.

    Before a flurry of "PC thought police!" protestations follow, I'm talking to the Liberals in the room. The Tories can be the same happy cavemen as ever.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6:54 p.m.  

  • There is no cakewalk for Stronach and Alcock in Manitoba. This is Kennedy's backyard. He has significant hometown (The Pas) support plus support in Winnipeg and many other Manitoba communities. His father ran federally for the Liberals in Churchill (Tina Keeper's riding). Manitoba Liberals- go for real change. We deserve our own homegrown leader- Go Kennedy!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:48 p.m.  

  • "Kind of tangential to this particular post, but I think whatever one's views of Stronach's likely candidacy, I think it'd be best if we not call her "Belinda."

    It may be a very common and not ill-intentioned usage, but it's fairly well known that female politicians very often get 'the first name treatment' in a way that subtly undermines the seriousness of their public persona. Sure, we call male politicians by their first name plenty, but not the majority of the time."

    Belinda refers to HERSELF using first name only. Look at her website "belinda.ca". How many male politicians do that? Could you imagine?

    Paul Martin - paul.ca
    Scott Brison - scott.ca
    Stephen Harper - stephen.ca

    "Belinda" has chosen to try for first name only recognition.

    By Blogger Michael Fox, at 9:38 p.m.  

  • Besides some random blog comment is their actual evidence that Alcock and Zimmer are supporting Belinda? I'm out of the province right now, but I still keep in touch with Liberals back home and nobody has mentioned anything about Alcock being in charge of Belinda's campaign.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:36 p.m.  

  • Well, it's an arguable point - some women politicians play up their first name recognition (as do some men). But I don't usually talk about Michael, Gerard and Stephane, so I try to go with Stronach by the same token. Politicos usually have last name recognition - no Mr., no Ms., no M., just "Ignatieff, Dion, Kennedy, Rae, Brison" etc.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:51 p.m.  

  • Kennedy has no core of support in Manitoba. His dad ran and lost in a federal seat that we only can win if the NDP collapses. He has not had any connection with the province or more importantly Winnipeg in over 30 years.

    I live in Winnipeg and am an active and involved Liberal and I can say that no one has mentioned Kennedy at any time over the past month. Just because he was born somewhere does not give him instant organization in a province.

    Among Liberals in Manitoba it seems to breaking down to Alcock and his considerable crew with Belinda, some other former Martinites that don't like Reg are going with Brison (He did a few big events in Winnipeg this past weekend) Anitia Neville is rumored to be leaning towards Iggy or Belinda if Reg can control her. Axworthy and his old guard will fight Alcock, the old Rock people will go with Iggy too.

    Kennedy won't have much to work with.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:36 p.m.  

  • Anonymous,

    I am active in the Liberal party in Winnipeg too and I think it is way too early to predict how the support will go here.

    I am not bothered by the fact that Kennedy has been a very successful Ontario cabinet minister in recent years. As for contacts in Manitoba, Kennedy has been in touch and I am sure he will be here soon.

    I think the majority of Liberals in Manitoba are tired of the old Martin camp vs. Chretien camp battle. We need real party renewal and Kennedy is one of the best candidates I have seen in long time. Stronach is just not a credible candidate.

    The fact that Kennedy is from Manitoba is a bonus. We should all give him some serious consideration. Having a Liberal leader and prime minister from Manitoba is all right by me.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:07 a.m.  

  • Kennedy does not have much organization yet ecause he has not decided to run or not. If Kennedy does enter the race I think he will have a lot of people in Manitoba willing to work really hard to make him leader.

    I really think that the Alcock thing is overblowen, Reg himself is not able to bring out numbers he needs to bully people like John Lien, and other ethnic leaders to do it for him and I'm not convinced no matter how many calls Reg or Nakina or Pat or Robin or that gang make this time that everybody in the province is going to jump on board like they did for Martin.

    This leadership will be a real race and Reg will be once again on the losers side after it is over.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 11:49 a.m.  

  • Again,

    Gerard Kennedy's website is www.gerardkennedy.ca. If he decided to market himself through www.gerard.ca, and put simply "gerard" on all of his campaign literature, people might just refer to him by first name only.

    Nobody referred to Kim Campbell as "Kim", or Audrey McLaughlin as "Audrey". Belinda Stronach is referred to as "Belinda" because she chooses to be.

    By Blogger Michael Fox, at 1:26 p.m.  

  • Belinda stronach is a world class dipstick. She was an embarassment to the Conservatives, and she will be a travesty to the LIberals if they are dumb enough to choose her to lead the Party. Face it, if it weren't for "Belinda's" Daddy......she'd be waiting tables somewhere for minimum wage. At least she has the education for that.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:12 p.m.  

  • Gerard Kennedy ran for the leadership of the Ontario Liberals and lost despite being the frontrunner throughout that leadership campaign. And now he is going to win the leadership of the federal Liberals?

    There has not been any critical analysis of the reasons why Kennedy was rejected by the Ontario Liberals. If they made a mistake, then fine, one can surely explain why. But apart from such an explanation there is not enough thinking going into the question whether Kennedy is the man.

    - Brian Dell

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:19 p.m.  

  • I'd wager that Stronach endorsed her "first name" status after she was already referred to that way, as in the case of other female political leaders.

    Hillary, Maggie, Liddy, Condi, Belinda - some appropriate for their own uses what is effectively a diminutive form of address, some don't. But the practice doesn't originate with them.

    This is essentially a feminist argument, so again, I'm basically just talking to the Liberals here.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:42 p.m.  

  • Brian,

    There is no mystery why Kennedy did not win the Ontario leadership 10 years ago. It is straightforward. He had only been a politician for a few months (Iggy take note) and some party members were uneasy going with a rookie. For the past 10 years, he has proven himself to be a very effective politician and minister. He is ready to be PM and he has my support if he runs.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:44 p.m.  

  • Jason,

    Even before Stronach was a household name and was just starting to run for the conservative leadership she was already calling herself Belinda in her first campaign literature. The whole "Belinda" thing has been driven by her and the people around her. However I agree that the reason she did this may be because of the past sexist first naming done to Thatcher and Clinton.

    If people start calling Hall-Mindly just Maratha or if Bennet run and gets called Caroyln than you will have an argument, but I doubt it.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:11 p.m.  

  • Remember the "Belinda House Party"?

    LOL

    By Blogger Michael Fox, at 7:29 p.m.  

  • You guys from Winnipeg who claim to be active liberals should think before talking. Get over what happened in the last leadership, and stop saying things you don't know to be the truth.

    As for all his staff-they aren't all working for Belinda. Making assumptions is dangerous. Assuming Nakina, Robin and Pat aren't powerful organizers is stupid for anyone who may be organizing against them in this leadership race.

    As much as we may want to insult some of Reg's old staff-they were efficient, got the job done, and burned any of us without being arrogant. Maybe instead of bitching about where the party is at in the Province we should just put it behind us and stop spreading rumours that are not true.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:10 a.m.  

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