Prominent NDPers critical of Layton's decision to ignore Harper.

[Hoping4Change]

Its not just some us here who are dismayed by the NDPs decision to lay off Harper.

snip

James Laxer, a veteran New Democrat, said Mr. Layton handed an advantage to Mr. Harper by helping topple the Liberals last November just weeks after the first report on the federal sponsorship scandal.

"They helped frame it as an election about scandal, which meant they were playing to Harper's strong suit," Mr. Laxer said of Mr. Layton, who has campaigned on the notion that the two main parties offer only a choice between "corruption and Conservatives."


snip


Targeting the Liberals is not unlike a strategy that Les Campbell, former chief of staff to ex-NDP leader Audrey McLaughlin, has advocated in an e-mail discussion group called NDProgress -- reform-minded New Democrats who want to move to the centre and edge out the Liberals.

The truth is that the NDP will only achieve government status in a polarized environment," Mr. Campbell wrote last November in an NDProgress e-mail discussion. "What is necessary, and what happened in Manitoba, is to vanquish the Liberals. Move to the middle, choke off their support . . . Don't demonize the right."



http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20060119/ELXNNDP19/TPNational/Canada

[Spazito]

1. Good article and right on point, imo

Thanks for posting it.

[V. Kid]

2. Well, they are the incumbents so obviously they'll be the focus....

...In other areas, where the races are NDP vs Con, thats where the NDP's campaign is focused.

Btw, I take offence to the suggestion that having an election on corruption is helpful to the right, what does that even mean? That they're not corrupt? Ridiculous, the Cons aren't even in yet and I can tell they'll be corrupt.

[Vote NDP]

3. I disagree...

Early in the campaign, it looked as though the Liberals were going to (at least) make up for losses in Quebec by gaining elsewhere in Canada and win about the same number of seats that they had won before.

Nobody could have predicted that either the Liberal Party (which is known for running strong campaigns about nothing and then getting elected on them) campaign would meltdown the way it did or that Liberals would put more feet in their mouths than Cheryl Gallant at a Southern Baptist Church. Nor could anybody have predicted that the Conservatives -- prone to MPs and allies having extremist so-con flare-ups come campaign time -- would have run such an error-free campaign or have made the gains they're making in Quebec (which, thankfully, will mainly result in a lot of ridings being won by margins like BQ 45 - Conservative 30). I did script an ad that I wish my party would have run late in the election campaign, but arguments could be made that we will make more gains by protecting our left-flank from Liberal fearmongering tha we will by making people more scared of their Conservatives.

[iverglas]

4. the armchair quarterbacks

Same ones who griped about the NDP not running an anti-free trade campaign in 88, I'd guess.

That particular case is one I can speak to, since I was a candidate. I realized in the early days of the campaign that trying to talk free trade on the door step was like hitting a voter with a pop algebra quiz. "So, what do you think about free trade?" "Uh, if 'x' equals 2, and 'y' is half of 'x', uh, will there be a make-up test?"

(Not that I didn't do it when it was appropriate -- like a debate held by a multicultural / visible minority women's organization, where Gerry Weiner tried to tell the crowd that a free trade deal that caused the loss of jobs in Toronto's garment district wouldn't be a bad thing, because they weren't good jobs anyway. Too easy pickings for me: "But Mr. Minister ... they're the only jobs they've got" ... standing ovation.)

The Liberals did their thing, and they did it well, in that campaign. They produced a lot of sound and fury against free trade. Just like they beat their chests about "a woman's right to choose", or independent foreign policy, when it seems expedient to do so. It signified nothing, but the NDP could hardly stop them doing it -- or stop the media playing to them on it. We were left being also-ran, me-too opponents of free trade, and nothing we could have done would have changed that. And this was simply was not going to be the issue on which people switched their vote from Liberal to NDP unless they were already persuaded that the Liberals were the hollow liars they were and are, and that could not be done by focusing on free trade anyway.

Do we really imagine that a whole lot of people are going to switch their vote, in any one election, from PC/Reform/Alliance/CPC to NDP? Or that the NDP is capable of hauling any who do abandon the far right all the way over to the NDP, when the Liberals provided such a convenient way station? You go after the votes you have a chance of getting, surely obviously.

"What is necessary, and what happened in Manitoba, is to vanquish the Liberals. Move to the middle, choke off their support ... Don't demonize the right."

That, of course, is something I vehemently disagree with doing -- although it would be what the NDP would be doing if it were up to what some here take such glee in accusing it of doing: acting out of purely "party interest", soley to maximize seats. If I'm going to move to this mythical middle -- i.e., in plain and more accurate terms, be a Liberal -- and to put it more plainly, be right-wing -- I'll join the Liberals.

The thing is that this is *not* something I have seen Layton or the party doing this election, and I'm quite pleased by that. They're asking Liberal voters to come to them, for whatever reasons the voters themselves might have, which pretty obviously include disgust with the Liberal Party, for reasons having nothing to do with the NDP. They're *not* trying to pretend they're Liberals, or straddling the middle of any road. Offering people a few good reasons for doing that is a pretty good strategy, I'd say, and it's quite different from wandering into some mythical middle, which really just means becoming a right-wing party.

In any event, how obvious is it that by soliciting Liberal voters, the NDP is asking people to vote against the Conservatives? In fact Jack's doing that pretty explicitly. From that article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20060119/ELXNNDP19/TPNational/Canada

At a rally in Saskatoon, Mr. Layton gave further evidence of the strategy in explaining why Liberals should vote NDP. "Because clearly the Liberals haven't earned your vote and they're not going to be successful in stopping the Conservatives. It's the NDP that's going to be successful right here in Saskatoon and in ridings all across the country," he said.

Hardly "laying off" the Conservatives, I'd say.

[Harper_is_Bush]

5. Without a doubt; and deservedly, Layton will be critisized for this

for a long time to come.

He made a cynical decision to go easy on those who are his political opposite. That hasn't escaped attention, obviously.

I know I won't be voting NDP for a long time, if ever. This has left a bad taste in my mouth.

[CHIMO]

6. Boy oh Boy

It's nice to be so confident. I once was like that because I knew everything.

However, now I don't know.

If you look back at things, does it ever occur to you that the Liberals may have been painting a picture that there was no difference between the NDP and the Liberals. That they forced the divorce because the perception was being created that they were the one and the same?

Has it ever occurred to you that the two parties have different ideals?