NDP National Leadership

[Edward Campbell]

Anthony Furey, writing in the Toronto Sun, says that: "It’s going to be a tough few years for the NDP as it sits on the sidelines and watches the Liberals claim to be the most progressive party.

    Holding down the fort as third party isn’t fun, especially after you’ve been used to having the limelight as the official Opposition. But it’s even less so when other people are stealing your remaining thunder.

    In the days leading up to the election, Justin Trudeau claimed “the most progressive platform is the Liberal platform.”

    The week before the campaign, the party released quotes from former NDP politicians, candidates and supporters who had gone Liberal.

    It was obviously a ploy to make the anti-Stephen Harper vote rally behind Trudeau. And it worked."

My perception is that first Jack Layton and now Thomas Mulcair tried to emulate Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a way, and drag their left wing party into the political centre. As, long as Prime Minister Harper's Conservatives were the main (only real) enemy it was a good strategy. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals outflanked the NDP on the left while, still, holding on to its own centrist base.

Now the NDP must watch as, it appears, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will keep many of the leftish promises that brought so many NDP supporters into the Liberal fold.

That may be the biggest threat to Mr Mulcair's leadership.

 

[dapaterson]

Now the NDP must watch as, it appears, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will keep many of the leftish promises that brought so many NDP supporters into the Liberal fold.

That may be the biggest threat to Mr Mulcair's leadership.

Angry Santa is good for one more election.  If he stalls out at the current level, he'll be gone.

Or, for the statistics geeks out there, you can view the last election's results for the NDP as a regression to the mean...

 

[ModlrMike]

Much is being made of Mr Trudeau's defeat of Stephen Harper. Personally, I think the real victory was the defeat of Thomas Mulcair. The fact that the Liberals won the whole thing was secondary.

 

[Edward Campbell]

David Akin reports in his blog, On The Hill that the NDP's national director (boss of the party "machine") "Anne McGrath will leave Ottawa and head to Edmonton at the end of the year" to become deputy chief of staff to Premier Rachel Notley, working with (for) Brian Topp.

This is either (your choice) bad news for the NDP ~ almost a "stab in the back" for Mr Mulcair, or just what the party needs ~ a chance for some new ideas.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I don't know why they did so, but to me it looks like Mulcair and the party establishment failed to successfully execute the strategy Layton had established: to squeeze the LPC out of existence and replace it as the primary alternative on the left.  "Job 1" for the NDP in the recent election should have been to destroy the Liberals, even if it meant allowing a CPC government to return as a minority or even as a majority.  They missed their one golden chance in a half-century.

"ABC" - or any campaign which promotes "strategic voting" to prevent election of candidates of the right-most party - inevitably benefits the Liberals.  The NDP cannot play that game.  If the NDP is serious about wanting to govern federally, they need to take at least 15 percentage points of the Liberal "base" away (permanently) and be able to acquire 5 to 10 percentage points from the middle.  I will assume that is not going to happen unless the faction currently in control is thrown out and replaced by people who were close advisors of Layton.

 

[cavalryman]

Unless the NDP manages to shed its loony left and silver spoon socialist element (recall the Leap Manifesto, signed by folks with no understanding of Main Street Canada), it'll never win over enough of the mushy middle.  Since the loons have no other home than the NDP, I'd say the Layton singularity has been extinguished and the political universe is once more in its proper balance.

 

[Kirkhill]

David Akin reports in his blog, On The Hill that the NDP's national director (boss of the party "machine") "Anne McGrath will leave Ottawa and head to Edmonton at the end of the year" to become deputy chief of staff to Premier Rachel Notley, working with (for) Brian Topp.

This is either (your choice) bad news for the NDP ~ almost a "stab in the back" for Mr Mulcair, or just what the party needs ~ a chance for some new ideas.

To heck with the NDP.  It's bad news for Alberta. 

This, together with the movements from Wynne's "team" to Trudeau's "team" suggest that there are a couple of mobs of over-achievers that move from one jurisdiction to another, as the electoral winds blow, and suck off the public teat while playing their social engineering parlour games.

Not another socialist government in Alberta.  Never Again.

 

[Altair]

I don't know why they did so, but to me it looks like Mulcair and the party establishment failed to successfully execute the strategy Layton had established: to squeeze the LPC out of existence and replace it as the primary alternative on the left.  "Job 1" for the NDP in the recent election should have been to destroy the Liberals, even if it meant allowing a CPC government to return as a minority or even as a majority.  They missed their one golden chance in a half-century.

"ABC" - or any campaign which promotes "strategic voting" to prevent election of candidates of the right-most party - inevitably benefits the Liberals.  The NDP cannot play that game.  If the NDP is serious about wanting to govern federally, they need to take at least 15 percentage points of the Liberal "base" away (permanently) and be able to acquire 5 to 10 percentage points from the middle.  I will assume that is not going to happen unless the faction currently in control is thrown out and replaced by people who were close advisors of Layton.

Lord man, they tried.

This was the closest to the center the party has been in their history (as far back as I can remember)

They went to balanced budgets and not tax hikes on the rich, really, I don't see how they could have gone much more to the center other than to kidnap Peter MacKay and make him party leader.

The only reason the NDP are where they are is because they tries to pander to the quebec nationalists that gave them their big breakthrough and then tossed away that support by supporting the niqab.

An all together confusing and clumsy campaign, but I wouldn't say they lost because they didn't try to capture the center. If anything, going to the center cost them when the liberals swung hard left.

 

[Altair]

To heck with the NDP.  It's bad news for Alberta. 

This, together with the movements from Wynne's "team" to Trudeau's "team" suggest that there are a couple of mobs of over-achievers that move from one jurisdiction to another, as the electoral winds blow, and suck off the public teat while playing their social engineering parlour games.

Not another socialist government in Alberta.  Never Again.

Well, until the right gets their house in order in Alberta. ..

 

[jollyjacktar]

Well, until the right gets their house in order in Canada

FTFY

 

[Brad Sallows]

>Lord man, they tried.

I don't think they tried hard enough.  They went along with the ABC/strategic voting game.  They wasted time attacking the Conservatives when they should have been attacking - and counter-attacking - the Liberals.  In essence, they failed to maintain the aim.

 

[larry Strong]

And the knives sharpen.........

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/mulcair-loses-support-of-labour-group-ahead-of-leadership-vote-1.2822362



Cheers
Larry

 

[jollyjacktar]

He deserves every one that he'll get in the back for sinking the victory win they had sewn up.  His mouth cost them the election.

 

[PuckChaser]

Harper succeeded in killing a party, just not the right one. NDP will go back to its socialist, pre-Layton roots, and sink further into irrelevance. Especially true if Trudeau keeps outflanking them with the "progressive" rhetoric.