Connie Leadership 2011

Here’s your scorecard for the upcoming rumble.

This should also help you cut through the noise likely to come from all sorts of sources.

A.  Who will run…

• Joan Burke – According to some accounts her crew started working the phones the Danny Danny announced. She’s also reputed to have had a war chest ready to go for a couple of years.
• Jerome Kennedy – The perceived front-runner;  officially playing coy and a wee bit reluctant but that’s just for show.  Rumour on the Hill is that he’s got cash in the bank and a bunch of loyalists salted away in short-term jobs all through the Confed Building.  Jerome!’s been working on his image a bit here and there, suggesting he’s got someone coaching him. 
• Darin King – Hoping to come up the middle between two polarising candidates with gigantic negatives.  Bland might work.

B.  Who is likely to run…

• Kevin O’Brien – Premier Fairity  - below - may be the only person who thinks he should run. Likely wants to take the shot he gave up in 2000 to let Danny take the job.
• Steve Kent  - Officially, he won’t comment until after Christmas.  Expect him to give it a run to raise his profile. Someone registered draftstevekent.ca on November 29 when Danny’s political corpse wasn’t even chilly, let alone cold.

C.  Who might run…

• Shawn Skinner – Principal Skinner is one of those guys who might take it in his head to run but who is more likely to back someone like Kennedy.  His appointment to Natural Resources suggests he’ll be responsible for smacking the Muskrat Falls thing every now and then to make it seem like the Norwegian Blue is just kipping.
• Tom Osborne – the member that works is rumoured to be eyeing a job as the federal member that works.  His name still comes up and can’t be completely discounted.

D.  Who you can count out…

• Kathy Dunderdale – Headed for retirement anyway.  She got beatoned as a thank you on her way out the door for her loyal, if uninspiring, service to the Old Man.
• Tom Marshall – Ditto on the retirement thingy.  He hedged his bets for appearances sake during a recent scrum. 
• Tim Powers – A candidate in the imagination of people in Ottawa.  If, by some bizarre turn of events Powers actually runs, he’ll likely drag up the arse end of the pack slightly ahead of Kent and O‘Brien.
• Doug Moores
• Rick Hillier – the first name that cropped up  people anxious to have the racket start.  He’s got too much else on the go.  And besides, why would he give up a national profile for that gig?
• Senator Beth Marshall – Set for life and with a steady paycheque until she turns 75.  Would you give that up?
• Senator Fabian Manning – Seen in the Avalon Mall on Monday afternoon doing some shopping but as with Beth, why would any sane person give up the sinecure?

E.  Sentimental Favourite

Right in!  Right on!  Rideout!

 

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*   Edited for typos and to clarify some sentences.

 

Catch-Update:  The mighty Ceeb cornered Darin King and got him on the record giving the standard line candidates use before they are ready to it over announce. Someone also asked Clyde Jackman and while Jackman said he’s going to take the holidays to mull over a leadership run, expect him to announce he is leaving politics.

Rebellion!

NTV’s Michael Connors isn’t a flashy reporter but he is a solid performer, day-in, day-out.

He doesn’t work for the news outlet everyone loves to hate, but then again, NTV manages to score solid news hits time after time.

One of his reports on November 26 was an overview of the political landscape in the province after Danny Williams. It includes an observation that Kathy Dunderdale and the next Tory leader after her may well face a fractious caucus.

That’s true.  Danny Williams ran a tight ship not because he was a populist, as Memorial University professor Alex Marland claims, but because he ruled with an iron hand. 

People in Williams’ caucus – and it was his caucus, not a Conservative Party caucus - saw time after time his enthusiasm in attaching people for the tiniest of alleged transgressions and his willingness to go to war with Fabian Manning over what, apparently, was a mix-up in which manning brother was thinking of running federally.

With that gone and with the pent up egos of  a few really ambitious politicians about to display themselves for the first time in seven years, it all might wind up like some sort of Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale meets Mardi Gras. 

More likely, though, the problems won’t be with caucus discipline.  There might be people who start speaking a bit too freely about their own opinions as opposed to standing with their team. 

More likely, the problems will come as the campaign heats up and leading contenders start to smash into each other.  Things are pretty civilised so far, but then again what is happening right now is only a few notches above the simmering undeclared war that’s been going on for months.

Supposedly, prospective late-comer candidates are making calls gauging support while the ones who’ve already decided to run are starting to take the wrappers off their teams.  Those people are making calls on behalf of candidates like Joan Burke, she who has had a war chest for some time.

The object of her likely aggression will be Jerome Kennedy.  His coy comments about maybe not wanting to be the man who follows the man are just talk.  He’s got people salted away throughout government and it would be a complete surprise if he didn’t run at this point. 

There is still the outside possibility the Tories will try to emulate the Tobin coup in 1996, but odds are against it.  A crew got Tobin into place before potential leaders  like John Efford even started.  They could then head into a quickie election and carry on from there.

The Tories don’t seem to function like that.  In 1989, they opted for battle-axes to the sides of each other’s heads. Not a good move, as it turned out. The warfare lasted well into the next decade and really didn’t disappear until Danny showed up as the saviour in 2000.

In 1979, they had a large battle that ended successfully in several respects.  But that was a completely different caucus both in style and substance from the current Tory one. For one thing, the incoming leader could remake the party and take it to further success.

What does Danny’s replacement do?  There could be an anti-Danny who tries to disown his predecessor’s style and policies.  That’s got limited potential.  on the other hand there could well be a candidate who tries to pass himself or herself as the distilled essence of Danny;  all the anger but none of the depth.  Being more Danny than Danny isn’t likely to be a winnable strategy in some parts of the province either.

In any event, the whole thing will stay calm through Christmas.  Once the New Year arrives and the party figures out what it will do for a convention, all bets are off.

And in the end, the leadership will be about a simple proposition:  either the party changes or the voters will make a change for them.

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Premier Doug Moores

Not like his name hasn’t been tossed around before as a potential Conservative Party leader.

The guy’s got bags of experience and he has a strong business and legal background.  Here’s the blurb that went with a 2001 provincial honour he received:

Doug Moores has served as a volunteer for 30 years, contributing locally, provincially, nationally and internationally. He has held leadership roles in numerous sports, arts and culture, health care, and business and development associations. He has made significant contributions to the Conception Bay North Development Association, the Harbour Grace Board of Trade and Baccalieu Chamber of Commerce, among others.

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The Post-Danny World

Political junkies  - especially every Tory in the province - will no doubt be glued to their sets tuned to NTV and their exclusive interview with Premier Danny Williams from his home in Florida. That’s where he is recovering from surgery which – as we now know – took twice or three times as long as originally anticipated.

As NTV news director Fred Hutton teased it up, they’ll be asking a good many questions including one about the Premier’s political future.

Odds are good those same political junkies will be pondering a few more questions in the months ahead, regardless of what the Premier tells Fred.

Questions like:

• Who among the current provincial Conservatives has been organizing already to replace The Leader when he finally decides to head off to Sarasota permanently?
• Who among them has the biggest war chest?
• Which provincial Tories won’t be running for re-election whenever the writ drops next for a general election?

These questions and others related to them may well be the most pertinent political questions to ask in Newfoundland and Labrador for the rest of this year.

Well that and the perennial favourite:  “whatever happened to John Hickey’s lawsuit against Roger Grimes, anyway?”

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