I really appreciate the thought and effort you put into your modelling. When I heard that Emily Lowan had some of the same team behind as Anjali Appadurai - the person who I suspect was about to be elected BC NDP leader before the party rewrote their rule book mid-campaign - I knew almost nothing about her or either of the other candidates and was sure Emily was a lock. Funniest line in your piece... "and the party set a short timeline to prevent anyone signing up new members" with the strikethrough (which I'm not able to replicate in comments). Thing is... I suspect Emily signed up more than enough new members and that the rules/fees around memberships for young members gave both young candidates a huge edge over Jonathan Kerr. Emily also has impressive and surprising endorsements and came off reallllllly well in the online all-candidates event.
I suspect the "old guard" is quite upset she's doing as well as she is. Looking at some of Kerr's endorsements he really seems like the "keep things as they are" candidate. We'll see what Green Party members decide though, and whether the party even lets the people Lowan signed up vote in the end.
So you're thinking Greens might get the full Anjali Appadurai experience? The bizarre way the party set up the leadership race - which you covered so well - teed up an odd contest because it didn't allow potential candidates to safely test the waters. I was shocked that none of the potential candidates on your list took a run at this - but feel like the weird set-up acted as a spectacular deterrent not just for the people the party was likely setting up their recycled barbed wire fences to avoid, but also the people they were hoping would show up.
I definitely think some folks within the party will do anything to make sure it never changes. Whether or not Lowan can overcome that will be the first test of her organizing abilities.
Agree with Mark: fine work on modelling those races, as well as possible. I wonder about Green demographics. The candidates are all fairly young; a lot of party members sure aren't. And older members don't follow social media as much, so that metric could be overemphasized. Even within that, TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram users are young, while Facebook and Youtube are popular among those of us over 50.
I really appreciate the thought and effort you put into your modelling. When I heard that Emily Lowan had some of the same team behind as Anjali Appadurai - the person who I suspect was about to be elected BC NDP leader before the party rewrote their rule book mid-campaign - I knew almost nothing about her or either of the other candidates and was sure Emily was a lock. Funniest line in your piece... "and the party set a short timeline to prevent anyone signing up new members" with the strikethrough (which I'm not able to replicate in comments). Thing is... I suspect Emily signed up more than enough new members and that the rules/fees around memberships for young members gave both young candidates a huge edge over Jonathan Kerr. Emily also has impressive and surprising endorsements and came off reallllllly well in the online all-candidates event.
I suspect the "old guard" is quite upset she's doing as well as she is. Looking at some of Kerr's endorsements he really seems like the "keep things as they are" candidate. We'll see what Green Party members decide though, and whether the party even lets the people Lowan signed up vote in the end.
So you're thinking Greens might get the full Anjali Appadurai experience? The bizarre way the party set up the leadership race - which you covered so well - teed up an odd contest because it didn't allow potential candidates to safely test the waters. I was shocked that none of the potential candidates on your list took a run at this - but feel like the weird set-up acted as a spectacular deterrent not just for the people the party was likely setting up their recycled barbed wire fences to avoid, but also the people they were hoping would show up.
I definitely think some folks within the party will do anything to make sure it never changes. Whether or not Lowan can overcome that will be the first test of her organizing abilities.
Agree with Mark: fine work on modelling those races, as well as possible. I wonder about Green demographics. The candidates are all fairly young; a lot of party members sure aren't. And older members don't follow social media as much, so that metric could be overemphasized. Even within that, TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram users are young, while Facebook and Youtube are popular among those of us over 50.