so, the apparent explanation of what happened in the ndp leadership race is that angus' supporters didn't show up to vote. it's curious how often the establishment's least preferred candidate has difficulty getting the vote out, isn't it?

i mentioned the other day that if there's shenanigans then they'll likely be in singh's favour, and the idea of singh winning on the first ballot does kind of seem like shenanigans. that's how the establishment avoids getting it's candidate ganged up on on the third ballot.

was angus a preferable candidate? the answer is that he really wasn't. he refused to condemn new pipelines, clearly mindful of the success of the ndp in alberta, and the importance of unifor in the party. and, his attempts at folksy populism have always seemed forced and contrived. his shtick was supposed to be about rebuilding trust, but he came off like a smarmy used car sales person.

i think the party should have picked niki ashton. but, in stating as much, i'm presenting a different tactical analysis. clearly, the party feels it's path to power is through minority votes.

a part of the reason it thinks that is that it realizes that it has difficulty convincing ideological leftists to actually vote. but, it's missing the point: i wouldn't have wanted to vote for charlie angus, either, because he's not really on the left, either. if they're going to go around representing this historically left-wing party, and then present policies that are unappealing to left-wing voters, of course they're going to have difficulty with voter apathy: they're totally disconnected from their voter base.

the party has decided that it is going to keep the right-wing policy trajectory, and just focus on getting new voters.

and, you know what? with andrew scheer representing the fundamentalist wing of his own party, jagmeet singh may, in the long run, be an extremely appealing candidate to the country's shrinking swing demographic of red tories. a pyrrhic victory to be sure; by the time singh gets to them, they'll be dead.

destruction is not necessarily negative, because one has to destroy to rebuild. that is likely going to be what the ndp is going to go through in 2019, as singh enters parliament with a rump that he can reconstruct from scratch.

but, i am not a moderate conservative, and my voting interests will follow the leftist exodus, wherever it leads. perhaps we can learn a lesson from the singh campaign, and use what he did to the ndp as a model to crash the green party with.