Shut Up And Listen 115

PC Leadership Convention 2003
When the NDP (New Democrat Party) held their national leadership convention a few months back, I didn’t pay much attention despite the fact that the NDP is the party with which I hold the most affinity, but today I’ve been paying close attention to the national leadership convention of the PC (Progressive Conservative) party despite the fact that I rather despise the party. I mean, it’s a right-wing, conservative party; not exactly my kind of party, eh? But I guess the reason for this is that leadership conventions are like civil wars in a way. We have the party divided and fighting amongst itself and when it’s your party it sucks, but when it’s the OTHER party doing the in-fighting, then well, it’s entertaining. And so far today has been entertaining.
	Up until last night, there were five people in the running for the leadership of the PC after former Prime Minister (way back in the late 70s) Joe Clark stepped down from leadership of the party, but last night Craig Chandler dropped out. That’s of no matter as he was doing shit anyways. The four men who wish to lead the PC party to hopeful greatness are front-runner Peter MacKay, David Orchard, Jim Prentice, and come-from-behind Scott Brison. A couple of hours ago, we got the results of the first ballot and things are quite unexpected. Peter MacKay ended up with only 41.1% of the vote, when prior to the convention, his elected delegates gave him around 42% (on the first ballot, elected delegates had to vote as elected, only automatic or undecided delegates voted by choice), whereas Scott Brison who went in with about 9% came away with 16.4%, a huge gain, which could point to a shift of how the past few days of speeches and debates have affected the view of the candidates. Jim Prentice also had a slight gain, coming in with 18.2% and David Orchard performed as expected getting 24.3%. Voting on the second ballot has just ended and whoever comes in last there is out for sure.
	The thing about the second ballot is that now all the delegates get to vote how they want, which could point to MacKay and Orchard losing some of their support while Brison and Prentice gain. There’s talk already of it being a Brison versus MacKay third ballot despite the fact that Brison came in fourth on the first ballot. The fact that he made such a huge gain, which MacKay made no gain, quite possibly even a slight lose, shows that maybe the elected delegates don’t mean quite as much as one would think they do.
	Brison has the momentum, or at least the appearance of it, currently and that seems appropriate somehow. He’s the youngest of the candidates and appeals to the youth of the party probably a lot stronger than the others do, if only because he speaks his mind. While I don’t agree with a lot of his views, I even respect the guy as I’ve seen him talk to his opponents, like MacKay, and essentially bitch-slap them down. He doesn’t pull punches, and also, he’s proven that he’ll sacrifice and work hard for the party. When he was first elected to Parliament at the age of thirty, he soon thereafter gave his seat up so the again-new leader of the party, Joe Clark could enter Parliament. Also, having him as the leader of the party will show that quite possibly they are Progressive Conservatives as he is openly gay, which shouldn’t matter, and probably wouldn’t for a left-wing party, but having a gay right-wing leader could improve their image and make them appear more modern and open-minded. 
	If I were forced to characterize each candidate, I’d say that MacKay is the Big Politician Man, who not only wants to win, but thinks he should. Orchard is the Classic Crazy, the guy who has views that a lot of people are embarrassed by, but he doesn’t care and appeals to the older crowd (an impression that I’ve since learned is a little incorrect as he is labelled one of the more “progressive” candidates). Prentice is the Wannabe, he wants to be MacKay, but is stuck being thrown in with Brison, but without his energy. And Brison is the Young Gun, who may well take it because he’s young, modern and has a lot of energy on his side. 
	I’d say that the next leader of the PC party will be either MacKay or Brison by the way things are looking now. It looks like MacKay and Orchard will stay roughly the same or lose support, which Brison will gain big and Prentice will gain some, but be overtaken by Brison and forced to join him. This will then cause Orchard to fall victim to the “anyone but the frontrunner” movement that’s seemed to plague MacKay and throw his support in with Brison, which will then lead to a Brison/MacKay third ballot, which could go either way, but I’d bet on MacKay even though I’d rather see Brison take it. 
	Watching this whole thing has shown me how much I hate politics and these things in general though. The personal identification that people project onto these people is amazingly disgusting. I mean, let’s be honest and say all of these guys are scum. I mean, to succeed in politics, you have to compromise your principles a lot and that doesn’t speak of strong moral centre to me, that speaks of people who will do anything for power. I can understand supporting a party in such a manner, but an individual politician? That just smacks of naïveté and a false optimism that even an idealist twenty-year old finds sad. That, and probably, I’d feel uncomfortable surrounded by people who have been standing around all day, carrying signs with my name on them and chanting my name and shit. It’s weird is what it is.
	Holy fuck! Brison is out! He has been eliminated by three votes even thought he was the only one to gain any ground. There were sixty-three less votes on this ballot with MacKay losing 62 votes, Orchard losing 21 votes, Prentice losing 12 votes and Brison gaining 32 votes, but still coming in last. Now the question is which camp Brison will throw his support behind, while a lot of his supporters have already joined various other camps.
	Brison has joined with Prentice in what seems to essentially be a big “Fuck you!” to MacKay, and possibly in an effort to become leader by proxy as Prentice does not have a seat in Parliament, so Brison would then represent the leadership of the party in the house quite possibly. In doing so, though, Brison may be giving up a future in provincial politics as both he and MacKay are from Nova Scotia and by opposing MacKay so strongly, he could lose support of the province in general.
	Somehow it seems that the time between ballots increases each time. I mean, for the first one, voting took place from noon until one and we got the results by quarter to two. Then we waited until almost five-thirty for the results. It looks like the third ballot results won’t be had until eight-thirty or nine. I don’t know what kind of voting system they use, but really, wouldn’t it be nice if sometime they got the idea to count the votes as they are cast and thus save a lot of time? I know, I know, that may compromise the validity of the whole “secret ballot” process, but fuck, this is the twenty-first century and we are not used to waiting for results! We want instant results these days and they are not giving the people what they want.
	For fuck’s sake, there’s talk of a fourth ballot most likely! Of course, there are many people who will have to leave because they have to return home on flights and such (the tenuous Air Canada situation is to blame for that). Interesting they they’ve come this far and will most likely have to go further, but without everyone participating. Rather sad in a way, isn’t it? Democracy fails because people have flight reservations. Story of the system.
	The results are in and MacKay has gained a lot, getting 45% of the vote, Orchard has lost 2 votes since the last ballot and Prentice gained huge and came in second with 30.4%, so Orchard is off the ballot and the fourth ballot will be determined essentially by what Orchard decides to do. He could really go either way, and it looks like he’s on the move with the entire media following him. Orchard’s followers seem to be very loyal as his numbers haven’t changed in any big way, so whoever throws his support behind could very well be guaranteed the leadership of the party. 
	Orchard has gone only part of the way and looks to be waiting for MacKay to come to him, and yes, Orchard has given MacKay his support, which may mean that a fourth ballot won’t be necessary as Prentice could concede even though the Orchard followers seem lost in a way. Torn maybe over loyalty and anti-MacKay feelings. The fourth ballot will indeed be necessary as Prentice doesn’t look like he’s going to concede. So that means we’ve got to wait a few more hours. Fuck.
	Of course, I’d predict MacKay winning it all now with Orchard’s support. Looks like Brison took the risk and ended up fucking himself by siding with Prentice. If he joined up with MacKay, MacKay probably would have taken it, as the increase Prentice received on the third ballot from most likely, Brison delegates would have been a couple hundred more votes that MacKay needed in total. Ah well, in politics there’s always a winner and several losers, and it looks like Brison is the big loser of the day despite looking like a possible big winner after the first ballot. Three votes were all that stood between him and being a winner maybe, because I still think that if he had gotten ahead of Prentice on that second ballot then he’d currently have Prentice and Orchard’s support and look ready to be crowned the winner. Three votes. Makes Florida look like a landslide, doesn’t it?
	I’d like to take this moment to apologise for any confusion that results from the awkward nature of this column as I wrote it sort of as it happened and therefore it’s only a couple thousand words, it takes place over the span of many hours, most of which occurred in between paragraphs. I do think that this style is a good one to use though and that’s why I’ve used it many times and still do. Allows for a more pure, less produced column. You get exactly what I’m thinking when I think it, instead of me mulling it over for a period of time, letting it build up and then editing it in my head. Not something I’d like to do with every column, but it’s an effective form every once in a while. And now, we wait until the fourth ballot results even though most likely, they’ll be in the next paragraph. 
	Huh. Apparently Orchard got a written agreement with MacKay in exchange for support. While the details aren’t all public knowledge, one is a review of the free trade agreement (a portion of it, at the very least), something which Orchard is very opposed to. This has caused some controversy as NAFTA was a Tory creation and the idea of possibly destroying it (although they’d actually have to get into power) is a bit off-putting to some. In fact, many MacKay supporters have taken to chanting “Sold out!” over and over again. In an effort to gain Orchard’s supporters, MacKay quite possibly could have cost himself a portion of his support, but how much? Holy fuck, some people are pissed off. I mean, a reporter there described a man who literally tore up his membership card right there and then, and walked up to an Alliance party member and said that he wanted to sign up with that party (it was a splinter group of the PC party way back when). Many long-time Tories are angry about this deal and the possible implications of it. I may well have been right when I said that the PCs would leave this convention torn, except now because MacKay is a politician and will do almost anything to win.
	And now we get to see if MacKay (possibly) sold his soul for a good reason or not . . .
	Out of 2370 votes cast, 24 were spoiled (which says a lot), making 2346 eligible votes cast and therefore 1174 votes needed to win. Peter MacKay received 1510 votes or 64%, making him the new Progressive Conservative Party leader. Jim Prentice received 836 votes, which was an increase from the 761 he received on the third ballot. Interesting note, the number of eligible votes on the first ballot was 2629, and on the fourth it was 2346, a drop of 283, which wouldn’t have made a difference, but is still a big number.
	Next week, I’ll have a write-up of the post-convention shit including the deal between MacKay and Orchard and any other consequences. I know you’re all super-excited about it too.