Conventional Choices examines twenty-five different leadership elections over thirty-two years in three of Canada's maritime provinces to explore the backgrounds, attitudes, and motivations of those who select party leaders.

Tables and Figures Acknowledgments 1 Choosing Leaders 2 The Conventions 3 From J. Buchanan to A. Buchanan: Candidates and Voters 4 Tourists or Partisans? Political Background and ElectorEngagement 5 Leadership Election Support Patterns: Friends and Neighbours? 6 Town versus Country: Urban Rural Divisions 7 Brothers and Sisters? Gender-Based Voting at Party Conventions 8 Inter- and Intraparty Attitudinal Differences 9 Rebels without a Cause? Supporters of Fringe Candidates 10 Going My Way? "Delivering" Votes after the FirstBallot 11 Prince Edward Island and the Garden Myth 12 New Brunswick: The Politics of Language 13 Nova Scotia: The Challenge of Social Democracy 14 The End of the Affair? Political Scientists and the DelegatedConvention 15 Conclusion Appendix: Leadership Election Profiles for Nova Scotia, NewBrunswick, and Prince Edward Island Notes Bibliography Index

A monumental achievement of impeccable scholarship. Conventional Choices combines astute quantitative analysis of a remarkably wide-ranging data set with a thorough familiarity with the secondary literature of Maritime (and Canadian) politics and an encyclopaedic culling of newspaper sources. The analysis is never less than sure-footed and the conclusions are insightful. It will take its place among the key contributions to Maritime politics and to the study of leadership conventions.

Conventional Choices examines twenty-five different leadershipelections over thirty-two years in three of Canada's maritimeprovinces to explore the backgrounds, attitudes, and motivations ofthose who select party leaders.