Recently tagged PC leadership watch
Kathy Dunderdale ponders her options
Very soon after Kathy Dunderdale was sworn in as the 10th premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, reporters asked her if she would run in the upcoming leadership race for the Progressive Conservatives. “No,” she replied quickly.
That, we thought, was that.
Until the last few days, that is. Late last week, word went out that Jerome Kennedy, one of the frontrunners in the so-far unofficial race, was not going to run at all.
There’s been talk about other candidates - Rick Hillier here, Elizabeth Marshall there - but so far it’s just been talk.
So perhaps it wasn’t so surprising when Dunderdale opened the door during an interview with The Telegram.
“There’s a tremendous amount of pressure on me to reconsider, so I’ll take some time to think about that over … Christmas,” she said on Friday. “(But) I haven’t heard anything yet that’s made me change my mind.”
One of the last things Danny Williams did before retiring was to tap Dunderdale, who had been deputy premier, as his interim successor.
This sort of thing doesn’t happen often. In fact, it’s happened only once before, when Brian Tobin resigned abruptly in 2000 and arranged for Beaton Tulk to be sworn in behind him. Tulk had no leadership aspirations of his own, so he was seen as a neutral choice to take over as premier while Roger Grimes, John Efford and Paul Dicks prepared for what would be a pretty brutal battle.
Should Kathy Dunderdale enter the race? Would she have an unfair advantage, or does it matter? This is the subject of today’s survey. Cast a vote and let us know.
Tags: Kathy Dunderdale, PC leadership watch , Today's vote, politics
This race is a feeling a bit drafty
First, it was Tim Powers, Ottawa insider extraordinaire.
Then, it was Elizabeth Marshall, the former provincial cabinet minister and current federal senator.
This week, it’s a site and Twitter feed aimed at Steve Kent, the backbencher and former Mount Pearl mayor.
Each is the target of a “Draft [Their Name Here]” movement online.
And each, it’s worth noting, has neither jumped into the race or completely ruled out any chance of entering it.
The Draft Steve Kent Twitter feed, at this writing, has the most followers, at 79, although that number is relatively high because it’s following 892 other people - far more than the others combined.
The Draft Beth feed has 20 followers.
The Draft Tim Powers feed has 41 followers.
So, what does any of this indicate? At this stage, not a lot. It doesn’t take much to launch a social media campaign, although we note that the domain draftstevekent,ca was conspicuously registered on Nov. 29 , well before Danny Williams packed his last boxes at Confederation Building.
As well, no one is actually in the race yet, and no date has yet been set for the convention. We don’t even know what month, or even which season, it’ll be held.
In other words, let the spec and the draft movements continue!
Tags: PC leadership watch
Powers to the people?
Quite a few political watchers in Newfoundland and Labrador were bemused when a website launched last week aimed at drafting Tim Powers as the successor to Danny Williams. Powers has two key ingredients for a leadership candidate - he’s from here, he’s conservative - but he doesn’t have the high profile of other contenders, including Jerome Kennedy or Tom Marshall.
Powers, who works in Ottawa and is frequently seen on the political chat circuit, is extraordinarily well-connected, and has a wide circle of friends and contacts, including us in the media. [You can follow him on Twitter here.] He told us this week he was “very flattered and overwhelmed” by the online draft movement, but was coy about what his next move might be.
“I’m just in a sort of quiet listening reflective mode but I’m not about to make any announcements or do anything dramatic at the moment.”
The picture above, by the way, is from 1999 - and from a period that Powers would probably like to forget. You may recall that Powers quit as the campaign manager for Paul Brown in St. John’s Centre in that election during the Brian Tobin juggernaut; Brown, and the party, cut Powers loose after it was revealed he had leaked a note with disparaging accusations about Liberal candidate Mary Hodder.
Mind you, that was more than a decade ago, and it’s far more likely that if there is skepticism about Powers locally, it’s because he was on the other side of the ABC campaign that Danny Williams launched leading up to the 2007 federal election.
Then again, there has been a very noticeable detente between the provincial PCs and the federal Conservatives. It’ll be really interesting to see how federal Tories like Powers fit into a post-Danny PC party.
