I have been literally run off my feet giving interviews today, as the president of the riding association. The local television station stopped by a few minutes ago and I did an interview, and you know what happened? Before I went down, I looked great - clear complexion, perky hair. Afterwards, I popped back into the bathroom and what should have miraculously appeared mid-interview but a GIANT ZIT.

The moral of the story? Politics is bad for the skin.

More details to follow on that press release, which went out Friday, but the decision was actually made a month ago, way before this election fever; it just took the party this long to get around to vetting it and releasing it.

The long and the short of it is that I have a new job, I'm trying to finish my degree, my contracting has finally picked up and - really, the clincher for me - I am struggling with depression, again. I would say "suffering from," but really, other people are suffering from my depression... Hah, hah. Anyway, I've got ahold of it now - this happens, this will keep happening, and I am continually learning to manage it. But sometimes the water is just a bit too deep to touch the bottom and I have to swim for shore. It was pretty bleak there for a time, and deciding to step down was, honestly, a major help.

We're now looking for candidates. So for the love of god, contact me if you're interested in a fun, challenging, scary, amazing job experience. It's worth it - and I honestly hope to do it at some point in my life when I can devote all my energy to it, but right now is not that time. So contact me!

KINGSTON - Federal NDP candidate Renee Stephen has announced that she is stepping down as the candidate for Kingston & the Islands for personal and professional reasons.

"I regret that I am unable to commit the time and energy that Kingstonians need from a candidate. It’s been a great year and a half, and I’m grateful to Jack Layton and our Party for their endless support and hard work," said Stephen.

Stephen will continue in her role as President of the riding association, and is leading the search for a new candidate.

"We've made steady gains here in Kingston," said Stephen, citing Rob Hutchinson's achievement in doubling the Party's number of votes in the last federal election. "With a strong candidate we’ll build on the growth we’ve seen here."

Stephen criticized Liberal MP Peter Milliken and Stéphane Dion’s Liberal Party calling them an “absentee party" and said "average families in Kingston are tired of the lack of representation that they're seeing from Peter Milliken and Dion’s Liberals. We deserve a Member of Parliament who will work for the people of this riding. It's time to show Stéphane Dion that we’re ready for change."

- 30 -

Contact: Renee Stephen
Phone: 613-572-4637
reneestephen@ndp.ca

Oh, yeah - Happy Birthday NDP! This weekend was the 75th anniversary of the CCF and the Regina Manifesto. For a good run-down of its history (badly in need of some editing, but it's got good facts) check out this Rabble article:

If you want to put down socialism, the CCF, and the NDP, you sure do not want people to know about the history of Canada under capitalism. The lasting value of the manifesto is its account of how things went so terribly wrong in the 20th century, the bloodbath of World War I, the impoverishment of farm communities and working people, the speculative excesses of finance capitalists and the march of fascism.

Hello, I stopped liveblogging because one of the participants informed me that it was distracting. My fingers, they are like lightning. Anyway, we stopped talking about the green party and started talking about broad-based issues around the NDP's position as an "establishment" party versus a people's party, and the need to change back to a grassroots movement instead of a media-chasing machine.

Tomorrow, Michael Prue at the Brew Pub at noon. Show up and drink with us!

liveblogging part 2

2:30 : The green party threat... the protest vote.

3:00 : Still talkig about the green party. They're here to stay, we need to emphasize their right-winged-ness, not just ignore them.

3:10 : The party's brand is still stuck in Bob Rae / bad economic management. The green party is a "happy" party, and a green vote asuages voters' guilt.

3:20 : Novel idea: Making MPs spend time during every session (4/3) back in their ridings communicating issues to constiutients and taking instruction back to parliament.

Welcome to orangecamp - I'll be liveblogging the conference.

Introductions - we've got a few candidates, a few riding association presidents, and lots of political junkies.

9:50 : Introduction by Gilles Bisson, talking about party renewal and issues of the economy and paying for social programs (wealth generation). Talks about the NDP's fundraising issues, the party's debt, and how to come to terms with that.

10:00 : Nominate candidates early. What's the incentive for ridings to hold membership drives? We need to unbuild the party's centralized structure, to better support riding associations and to encourage fundraising. As a party, we get great credit on the social justice side. But we don't have trust on economics, and we need to build that - we need to stop reacting to issues to get headlines, and lead on economics.

10:05 : The need to to change labour legislation to support part-time workers and protect workers. End Gilles. Thanks, Gilles!

10:05 : Clarifying the rules of the ONDP leadership race. The $15,000 deposit and the angst around that. How much needs to be raised for the leadership race, and where the idea about centralized fundraising came from (Bob Rae) - more efficient since everything happens in TO, says Gilles. Why we need to change that.

10:10 : Central staff is good, but riding associations can do a lot if they have the financial capacity.

10:15 : How do we fundraise? Can we make rules friendly for fundraising? We need to support central, too. But the party doesn't have the resources to train everybody.

10:20 : Headline chasing is tremendously frustrating. It's too filtered a medium, not read anyway, not relevant. PR types dilute the party to headline-chasing instead of setting the issues.

10:25 : The "Province of Toronto". That's a great phrase.

10:25 : How to motivate people today: money, or opportunity. We can't offer either, and it shouldn't be a conscious strategy, because that = selling out. But how else do we motivate people? Preaching the gospel, or by being successful, or both. Being meaningful is the bottom line. People work for NGOs rather than in politics because that's where they feel they can make a difference.

10:30 : What is the party position on various issues? We don't have up-to-date information about a lot of things.

10:35 : Campaigns get reduced to headline-chasing and talking points. This is not good. We need to sell the gospel, not chase the article.

10:40 : Shared values: committment to public life, etc. But the devil is in the details. Conventions and councils: good or bad?

11:00 : A calendar! We need to know what every other riding association is doing - keeping people involved and aware that other people are doing.

11:15 : How to reconcile decentralized policy-making with expert and local knowledge?

11:20 : The CCF started with intellectuals, unionists and farmers. Where is our base now?

11:25 : There are lots of other social movements that are revitalizing their parties in other places - maybe we need to look at outside examples rather than inside examples.

I saw an albino squirrel today! It was white! And had beady little red eyes, as opposed to the usual beady little black eyes. Nifty. Rats with good PR.

First day of the new job - I'm going to love it. I can just tell.

Canada Day went well. We went down to the waterfront and handed out orange glow bracelets with candidate cards attached. Some of the young 'uns snapped off the cards, but many of the parents kept them. One woman said that she was a Liberal, but could she keep the bracelet? Oh, ok. Go democracy!