So Jack Layton is going to bring Gary Doer in to highlight a leaders summit about how the federal NDP can make a breakthrough in the next election. Is there really any secret to Doer’s success? Let me save the cost of Gary’s plane ticket and Chateau Laurier suite and lay it down nice and easy for Jack:
- Rule the party with an iron fist.
- Silence the yahoos (hey Pat Martin, that’s you!).
- Move to the middle and pander to the masses.
- Spin, spin, spin!
Basically (as I touched upon yesterday) it means abandoning all your precious idealism and deciding you’re just going to do whatever it takes to get elected. Once you get into power you can throw a few bones to your traditional support base (see Manitoba’s labour legislation as an example), but otherwise you simply set a course for blandsville. A few extra pennies for social services here, a minor tax trim there and plenty of ribbon cuttings to keep the media occupied and your backbenchers happy.
[In Doer's case, he also happened to be lucky enough to come to power at a time when even a rabid raccoon (hey Pat Martin, that's you!) could have run the province without too much trouble thanks to a strong national economy and some wise financial management by the previous administration.]
So there you have it Jack, a bulletproof plan to create that great federal NDP dynasty: become a Liberal.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: federal ndp, gary doer, Jack Layton, Manitoba NDP, ndp
You are quite correct that Layton has not listened to reason in how he should go about seeking power. Doer is not the only one who has tried to reform his Federal comrades and it has been going on long before Layton. I covered the NDP convention last year and even though the Federal and Provincial organizations are virtually one in the same …..still, the welcome Layton got compared to the Provincial players was noticeably cooler. He is just not engaged with the grassroots and seems attached primarily to social activists.
You could say almost the same thing about the Hughie party. He and his close circle too have spurned the grass roots and resisted change. And it shows.
I have seen this same behaviour in from newly elected small town council members to non profit administrators to private sector groups.
I suppose that the reason small groups of leadership individuals, against all good reason, get into this narrow circle mentality is because engagement triggers their basic tribal hormones. Unfortunately breaking such deliberate log jams requires highly destructive munitions with a lot of peripheral damage.
It is no way to run a railroad but I guess it is the best way we have.
Alas, if I knew I would be a great deal richer than I am today.