Bob Rae surpasses Nycole Turmel on Leadership Index

What's remarkable is that a well-known household name like Rae who gets TOTAL adulation from the national media - is only barely able to edge out a total unknown like Nycole Turmel on all these leadership attributes. It is real evidence of just how weak and unpopular Bob Rae is and how TOXIC he is as a brand. Nycole Turmel is just there to hold the fort for a few months - she has no desire whatsoever to be ever be permanent NDP leader and on March 24 2012 she will pass the torch to a permanent leader. Bob Rae is plotting and scheming to make himself permanent Liberal leader - even though he solemnly promised not to ever seek the job (so he lied though his teeth - big deal!). The fact the he is getting so little traction is DEADLY for him. He needs wayyyy better polling numbers lik this to make Liberals see him as indispensible.

Except, Stockholm, if you realize that the media will do anything to help raise the profile of the Liberals and cut down the NDP whenever possible.

That's the point that should be put out.

Since the messangers are suspect, so should be the message!!!

(How's that for a T-shirt slogan?)

Turmel has been a non-entity, albeit nder very difficult circumstances. Bring on the leadership debates.

On the other thread, folks were discussing language proficiency. Turmel has the folks who do closed captioniong on TV in knots, because apparently her English isn't close to perfect, and the CC folks just put on the screen what they hear, and she comes across as barely understable in English - according to every CC'd conversation I've seen of her. I'm deaf, and without Closed Captioning for TV, I may as well just turn the TV off.

Big deal.

What a wonder: Rae finaly cashes in a little bit on being more known than the NDP bench warmer.

And Debater thinks this is eventful.

So many surprises.

I don't think Nycole is a sovereignist at all.  She has been a New Democrat through and through.  I still remember the role she played in our renewal process in the mid-90s when very few Canadians, least of all québécois(es), wanted to be a part of the NDP.

That she was a supporter of social democratic parties in Québec (which also happened to be sovereignist) is a red herring.  There is no NDP in the National Assembly, that forces social democrats to be a part of other parties.  Hell, if I lived in Québec, I too would be a member of QS; I probably would have voted for the PQ a few times too!  And this despite my being an anglophone born in the Yukon and raised in Alberta, who would certainly vote "No" in a referendum on secession.

The fact that there is no NDP at the provincial level in Québec is a problem for federal supporters, but it explains how Nycole Turmel could support QS and also how Tom Mulcair was in the Québec Liberals (he was too hardcore a federalist to support the PQ).

People who rehash the tired memes that Nycole's a separatist or that Thomas is a Liberal show their complete ignorance of the nuances of Québec political culture. 

As I said above, one poll on this issue is not significant.  It's the long-term patterns that matter.  What it indicates though is that if the Liberals can find a decent leader this time and don't mess up like the last 2 times, they may be able to attract a lot of voters back.

Similarly, do not assume that the NDP will improve once it picks a permanent leader - it depends on whether it is the right leader.  If the next NDP leader is problematic, the NDP numbers could decline.  A lot of people, whether in Quebec or across Canada, are parking their votes with the NDP right now and waiting to see who takes over the NDP.  They could go elsewhere over the next few years depending on what happens.

In conclusion, I would agree that the media should give some slack to Turmel.  She only got elected as an MP for the first time this May and so she has very little political experience, and on top of that she was unexpectedly asked by her leader to take over from him when his cancer got worse.  That is a lot to deal with in your first year as an MP.

IF the moon were made of blue cheese, I might be able to make a cobb salad.

IF I could stop eating the leftover Hallowe'en candy, I might be able to fit into my Christmas party dress.

IF I make a wish, I might be able to avoid cleaning my house.

IF I buy a lottery ticket, I might be able to win enough to pay off the Liberal Party's campaign debt.

If Mme Turmel was our current leader and an election campaign was to happen within a year, then these numbers might worry me. She was selected because we needed someone who could hold down the fort while the party sorts out its affairs and picks a permanent leader, and she fits that bill perfectly. As head of a public service union, she is well versed in issues facing Canada as a whole. So what if she wouldn't win an election for the NDP? That was never the intention in the first place.

Well it's obviously true that there are a lot of "Ifs" involved, that's what I acknowledge above that these are only things that may potentially happen.  But that goes for all political parties, and that's part of politics.

You only succeed or win IF factors A, B, C, D, E etc. all come together.

The Liberals will only succeed IF they accomplish a number of things.  Just like the NDP will only become the government IF it can accomplish a number of objectives over the next few years.  (eg. If the NDP can pick a new leader who is as successful as Jack Layton, if the NDP can attract right-of-centre voters, if the NDP can present an economic plan that doesn't scare off voters, if the NDP can convince Bay Street and the media it can be a credible government etc.)

I don't even agree with your IFs, Debater. You're still a Liberal in your heart, even if you don't know it. Though, admittedly, if you're still a Liberal at this stage of the game, I'm afraid it's probably incurable. Go and spin the MSM to your heart's content, if you still think that's your path to power. Just really be clear that spinning that shit at Babble is so NOT your path to power.

Yeah, all the Liberals need to do is find the next Pierre Trudeau and they'll have it made in the shade.  Did you know that the Liberals are "Canada's Governing Party?"  Debater says you can take that to the bank!

Did you know that people in Western Canada are still cursing Trudeau's name?

I also don't believe the Liberals should be counted out, and I think that is something many in the NDP are doing. While the party has serious issues they have deep roots in the politics of this country and still many potential voters. If you actually look at the nanos poll numbers, where the NDP actually gew in support and the Liberals fell despite the leadership issue, the NDP are really only ahead of the Liberals in Quebec and the Prairies. Quebec is the reason the NDP have a large lead nationally over the Liberals and with the province being so volatile politically, and so leader dependent, the numbers could drastically change over the next few years. In Ontario the Liberals have nearly a 9% lead over the NDP, though they trail the Conservatives by 12%. It is not good news for the NDP to not even have 23% support in Canada's biggest province.

As for the idea that the media should go easy on Nycole Turmel I think it's quite dumb. If she didn't feel she was up for the job of interim leader she shouldn't have accepted it. While Turmel may have never originally expected to be leader beyond September there's no reason why she couldn't pass off the leadership to someone else following Jack's death.

How exactly is polling data insignificant?

One of the reasons people traditionally voted Liberal is that the Liberals traditionally contended for government. How they can contend for government in the next election as the third place party is quite a challenge. Not that it can't be done, but when that was your primary raison d'etre, people are not going to be impressed by that. They are also clearly behind the NDP in all provinces except Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island. Incumbency counts huge, and the current NDP MPs who represent former Liberal areas will probably work hard to keep the seats in their hands. Even in Toronto, the Liberals are the last place of all elected parties. Most of the Liberal vote was concentrated in regions with residual Liberal support, particularly Atlantic Canada. Nova Scotia is looking as if it's becoming polarized along PC-NDP lines provincially and probably would have a PC Official Opposition had the previous PC government not been so unpopular. I'm betting that 2013 will restore that NDP-PC dynamic, and that puts every Liberal MP in Nova Scotia at risk. The Liberal brand is also dead in Quebec and the Prairies, and those 2 regions comprise half the federal seats right there. The Liberals only won 2 provinces, and in each one, they are one swing seat away from that dominance going to another party.

Provincially, every election since 2010 has been bad for the Liberals, with the exceptions of Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island. Even in Newfoundland and Labrador, the Liberals finished behind the NDP in popular vote, but got lucky with a dead cat bounce in areas of traditional Liberal strength. The NDP, on the other hand, became an official party by more than doubling its previous high seat count, which gives them room to grow, and less questions about leadership, unlike the Liberals whose leader could not win his own seat. And the Liberal governments in the 3 major provinces that still have them are all quite unpopular. I think being the government in Ontario boosted the Liberals federally, but with a minority, I do not expect the Ontario Liberals to be in government during the federal election in 2015, and that will have a huge impact.

No one is counting the Liberals out.  However, you need to understand babble culture and history to understand the reaction.  You see Debater pretends he is some serious progressive that really, really wants to vote NDP, but can't because....used to be because they couldn't win.  That was his sole focus, now with the Liberals in decline he periodically comes up with something else.  It is all bunk of course because he only shows up when he feels there is something to gloat about in a decline of NDP fortunes (even gloating in a way over Layton's death within hours of it happening) or there is something he feels is postive for the Liberals.  What causes the strongest reaction though is his assumption that we babblers are so stupid as to not see through it.  His pretence is very dishonest and people get a little tired of it because he is not really here to discuss or engage anyone.  Why he thinks spinning this stuff on babble is a workable strategy is beyond me.

That said, one of the great mysteries of political life for me is the Ontario Bob Rae factor.  It shows how shallow Ontario politics really is in comparison to the rest of the country in many ways.  The NDP in Ontario is forever tagged as the great evil at our doorsteps and as proof they point to the Rae government- so if you are progressive you have to vote Liberal - in one of the more twisted forces of illogic of all time, because - well we don't want Rae days again do we.  But when it comes to the Liberals led by Rae (and before that Rae holding a very prominent postion), the NDP is still tagged as fiscally irresponsible, without ever mentioning Rae by name, and the so-called progressive crowd (think Alice Klien at Now Magazine) just ignore the reality of Liberal policies and tell us we have to vote Liberal to stop the Conservatives- when it usually makes no sense.  So Rae is vilified on the provincial level, including by many Liberals, but is the mesiah on the federal level- it is as if he were two different people who happen to have the same name.  And a great many people, particularly in the GTA just buy into it.  As I said, Ontario politics has become very shallow and people just default to the old options in a way they don't anywhere else in Canada any more.  At some point this will break and the Liberals in Ontario will succumb to the ineviatable worldwide trend of such brokerage parties and slowly move off the stage, but for now this has to be the place where the NDP focuses some efforts (not that they aren't) for the pay off in over all polling numbers would be very large for every few percentage points gained in Ontario.

But in the end this poll and gloating over it, is ridiculous given the current realities in the history of the NDP and the fact it really only has a placeholder leader, who was chosen to just keep things organized while new leadership was determined, as opposed to the Liberals who chose someone who was supposed to right the ship, but isn't and yet is clearly trying to make his leadership permanent, aided by a media that refuses to look out at the land, and despite all evidence, figure out that the weather has changed, thus giving the Liberals a far bigger share of media face time than the NDP ever had as the third place party.

Insignificant insofar as predicting anything about outcomes in four years' time.

What is that last point about?

That the Liberals are unlikely to be able to do the same thing as the NDP did?

Or that the NDP outcome is a one time event they are not likely to repeat?

Or...  ??

And I did not mean literaly no one will run for the leadership. I'm pretty sure LeBlanc will. A year and a half away for a race that WILL happen is most definitely not too early for people to be at least signalling their intentions or interest. In fact, if there was any significant interest and therefore presumed normal competition for the job.... serious potential contenders would have to make it clear they are tesing the waters.

Not to mention that the more you eschew at least dropping 'hints,' you are allowing Bob Rae to build a de facto and default lock on the job.

So you have one only quality candidate angling for the leadership, and no stellar quality candidates to boot. I would say that qualifies as a dangerously low level of interest in the job.

In the last point I was trying to say that a party being able to double their support is so rare that it will likely never happen again. If we going into the next election with the NDP holding say a 10 point lead on the Liberals it would be very unlikely to see the Liberals finish the campaign 10 points ahead of the NDP.

Two candidates have dropped hints on the Liberal leadership. Their process on how they will select a leader has not even been decided yet, and there are people within the party openly talking about really transforming the way they select the next leader. Nobody announced they were running for the NDP leadership before the rules were decided and it has been nearly two months since the NDP released the rules on how they will select the next leader and candidates are still coming forward. The Liberals are still however the third party so it is not suprising that their is little talk about their leadership, especially when it's so far away.

NDP was 15% behind the Liberals in February and 17% ahead of them on election day.

Which is what I'm talking about. It's very rare for a party to see such huge gains during the course of a campaign. Over the course of a five week campaign we usually don't see huge changes in party's popular vote.

The current NDP race is not comparable to anything else in timelines.

And when people formally ANNOUNCE is just the tip of the iceberg. A leadership race and people positioning begins in practice as soon as there is a vacancy- even if it is just a presumed vacancy, let alone a definite as with the Liberals.

Potential contenders only wait for the rules to be set to ANNOUNCE. The field starts shaping up long before then- as it did in the 1993-1995 NDP. But the Liberals only have one serious contender at this point. No doubt there will be at least another. But my point still stands- the big line is for the people saying or indicating they do not want the job.

But he speaks no French at all. I think the interim leader would have to have been at least passably bilingual. Bieng interim leader is not just about QP - most of the job is about caucus management etc...I suppose someone like Joe Comartin (who speaks French quite well) would have been a possibility.

Yes, but Joe hadn't ruled himself out of the leadership at the time. He is doing great as House Leader, by the looks of it, by the way.

I'm sure that played into his thinking. But he might theoretically have been interested in running at the time the Interim Leader had to be chosen, so that's why he wouldn't have been considered as Interim Leader, is what I'm saying.

How about this...give EACH of the leadership candidates a month to serve as Interim Leader...kind of an "audition" for the job.  Might be the best way to see how each of them would handle the job.

It would provide endless merriment for the Conservatives. I can just see Harper or Baird saying "Let's welcome the latest NDP wannabee to the Leader's seat".

I didn't think he was bilingual.  Nycole is doing exactly what she is supposed to be doing.  The last thing the party needs is her stealing headlines from the critics or the leadership candidates.  She was picked, because of her past experience, to keep a steady hand on the tiller as the party manoeuvres through the the shoals.  Like a good marine pilot you should never know she's aboard if she's doing her job well. If the caucus are all working hard and working together as a team then she is doing an excellent job.

We want the attention on the leadership not Nycole.  If she started stealing the limelight the question would be why is she not running.  Bob Rae is what we don't want in an interim leader, a politician with so big an ego he can't share the limelight with contenders.

And the media pretends that something important happened.

I actually think it is a good idea.  A critic must speak on behalf of the caucus on issues within their portfolio. Many of those issues have more than one side in the debate within the caucus. As babble shows many issues are multi hued and progressives can have differing opinions. Leadership candidates need to have the freedom to speak to the members about the issues that they want changed in party policy. It will be pretty boring if we don't get any of the same kind of debates that I am sure happen regularly in caucus.

She did a terrible job as a  new critic on P&P last week, even saying she is new to the job and unfamiliar with the file that was being discussed.

In 2015, Turmel won't be a factor in the least. It will be "Turmel who?". Just as Herb Gray wasn't a factor, postively or negatively, in the 1993 election. Not sure why we're even talking about it at length.

Jinny Sims is the NDP critic for International Cooperation and she was grilled out of the blue about nuclear submarines...

BTW, I totally overlooked three other outstanding front-benchers:

 * Chris Charlton

 * Dave Christopherson

 * Yvon Godin

Not that so much, as feeling that Question Period is not all that important to real voters, and our performance at the moment will not be important or even remembered once a new leader is picked.

And the lines that he most wanted to put across, off course\:

"Asked about the NDP’s orange wave in the last election in Quebec, Rae praised Jack Layton’s courage in the last election and described him as a friend of 40 years.

However, he said there is a fundamental difference between the NDP and the Liberal Party.

“The problem I still have with the New Democratic Party is at its heart it is a protest party. It is a party that is more comfortable with opposition than with government.”

And the problem I have with Bob Rae is he is a disingenuous opportunist.

You know, I wish the leadership would start letting Bob Rae have it. They are just letting him get out there and set memes without challenging anything he says. This may have worked negotiating contracts with the government for federal employees, but this leadership missing in action stuff is really starting to irritate me.

If they are going to keep this up, why doesn't the leadership gave Rae the keys to Stornaway and just move out already?

Pathetic!

Harper would have had a majority regardless of whether people in Quebec voted BQ or NDP - but in 2015 there will only be one way to get rid of Harper and that will be by voting NDP. Going back to the BQ will accomplish NOTHING. The sad reality is that the NDP and the Liberals could and probably would form some sort of accord/coalition if the Tories lost their majority. If the BQ is part of the mix then it all crahses and burns because it means "making a deal with traitors who want to destroy Canada" (sic.). The only way that Harper will ever be defeated is is NDP+Liberal = a majority - and even in that case there is a chance the Liberals would go back to propping up a minority Tory government.

As for rae absurd comments about the NDP - I don't know ANYONE in the NDP who wants to be in opposition. I do know that the Liberals had a chance to be in government with the NDP in Dec. 2008 - it was the LIBERALS who decided they would rather be in opposition than be in power and have to give the NDP a few crumbs. I think that Rae either knowingly lies about the NDP or else he is caught in a time warp and can't stop seeing the federal NDP of 2011 as being the same party he was part of 30 years ago.

Ignatieff and his camp never wanted the coalition - they PREFERRED being in opposition to having to share power with the NDP. Its as simple as that.

In 2015 when the NDP has 103 seats and the Liberals have 34 - its going to be very hard for the Liberal leader (whoever that person may be) to keep straight face while saying that people need to vote strategically for the Liberals in order to defeat the Tories.

Ignatieff was "brilliant" on TLMEP a couple of days before the election as well - a lot of good it did him. Look, we all know that Rae can put on a good show on TV this is nothing new - the problem is what a miserable person he is the moment the cameras aren't rolling and his total incompetence when it comes to actually running anything - not to mention that the only principle he seems to stand for is that he should be in power (funny how often that is a common Liberal disease). If you don't believe me - look at any recent interview with Rae where he brags about the fact that he has no ideology whatsoever and doesn't believe in anything.

I'm not sure what exactly you expect her to do...she truly is interim leader - so its not like she can go around talking about what she will do as PM - and the reality is that we have a leadership contest going on and that is sucking a lot of oxygen out of the room.

I hate to say it - but i think that the only thing the NDP really can do right now is keep training the new MPs, keep the focus on the leadership contest and remember that four years from now NO ONE will remember anything about this brief interregnum.

The current media narrative is that Rae's on fire and we're suffering from a lack-lustre leadership campaign.  The narrative 2 weeks before we won 103 seats was that Jack wasn't able to keep up on the campaign trail, no one was showing up to our events and we were headed for disaster.

I always take media narratives with a grain of salt, Arthur and so should you.  Sure everything seems dire when looked at in a snapshot, but just remember we're in this for the long game - winning in 2015.

By March/April, with a new leader, you won't even remember how "awful" it was back in December.

I guess I need to relax. I hate this "phoney war" stage we are in with the Libs. I will work on it. Oh, by the way OO, the "nautical term", is steady! (vice, calm down)

I guess you are right, they have been yanking my chain pretty strongly, we would call that roundly by the way in the Navy. If I got any of this mixed up, Malcom will fix it. The only thing that was harder to understand in my early Navy days was being underway versus making way. But that is for an entirely different thread. Lol!

Splicing the mainbrace works well to carry me through the dogwatch.

Aye, aye!

Wow, a political columnist for the Red Star is plumping for the Liberals and dismissing the NDP. Stop the presses.

That is supposition, Stockholm.  I'm not sure how you can state with certainty something that is speculative.  As Andrew Coyne said earlier this year, the Tories almost blew their shot at a majority - it was not there until the final days of the campaign when the 'orange crush' overtook the Liberals and split the vote, particularly in Ontario, and gave the Conservatives the numbers they needed.  Up until that point in time the Cons were only looking at a minority.

The NDP promised that it would stop Harper from winning a majority, and it was not able to do so.  So why should people vote NDP again?  If the most popular and charismatic NDP leader of all time could not stop Harper, why would a less popular NDP leader be able to do so?

Incidentally, as I said recently, voting evidence, particularly in Ontario indicates that the NDP primarily takes from the Liberals, not the Conservatives and that therefore an increase in the NDP vote helps the Cons.  In the recent Ontario election, Andrea Horwarth did not pick up a single Conservative seat.  All 7 were taken from the Liberals.

Now the situation is different in most of Western Canada where the NDP is stronger than the Liberals and where the reverse is often the case.  Out west it is often better to vote NDP than Liberal if you want to defeat a Conservative.  But if you are going to be honest (!) you cannot claim that the NDP is the best-positioned party nationally to defeat the Conservatives when it is only the case in certain regions.

I can't believe that you can keep a straight face and try to blame the NDP with 103 seats for the Tories having a majority while you're beloved Liberals have just 34. That being said there probably are some right of centre soft Tories who might vote Librral under duress but will NEVER vote NDP. So if the Liberals REALLY want to get rid of Harper at all cost, they should move to the right, pick a pro-business John Manley or Frank McKenna type as their next leader and concentrate completely on trying to take votes from the Conservatives and concede the left to the NDP.

One thing for sure, if you believe debater's hypotheses that Librrals voted Conservative in Ontario to prevent an NDP government because they had memories of how utterly dreadful Bob Rae was as Premier, it sure does not make sense to even consider making Bib Rae Liberal leader? If the memory of him is that poisonous to the NDP, imagine how much more corrosive he would be to the Liberals if he was their leader.

Stockholm,

I think there will be some Liberals who move the party to the centre and stop trying to go so far to the left and compete with the NDP for the progressive vote.  Some people running for new positions in the party are all ready saying we should move away from the left.  I think Zach Paikin, currently running for National Policy Chair, is suggesting something along those lines.

On the other hand, Sheila Copps who is running for Party President (and who I am voting for) might think the Liberals should remain a left-of-centre party.  As you know, she was popular with NDP voters when she was a Hamilton MP, which is why she attracted a lot of voters in that region.

And I agree with you that the Bob Rae baggage (which is still hurting the federal and provincial NDP in Ontario) probably does mean Rae can't be permanent Liberal leader.  Polls in Ontario showed blue liberals abandoning the Liberals and going to the Conservatives in the final days of the federal election, so that appears to indicate the NDP will have trouble doing well there as may Bob Rae if he were to remain Liberal leader.

Incidentally, regardless of the fact that the NDP may have won many more seats than the Liberals in this particular election, it still doesn't change the fact that the 'orange crush' helped the Conservatives.  We do agree that it 'crushed' the Liberals and not the Cons, yes?  Except in Quebec, the orange crush had very little negative effect on the Cons.  In fact, the NDP lost 2 seats outside Quebec to the Cons (Sault Ste. Marie & Elmwood-Transcona).

Anyway, I won't argue the point with you much more since I suspect we won't agree even though IMO the mathematical evidence supports the argument that the NDP took/takes more from the Liberals than it does from the Cons.

Cheers.  

Do you ever post any links that your analysis has a shred of credibility?

No. Didn't think so.

And it would be so easy. The Star's your friend.

Actually the NDP prevented a Torynmajority in 2006 and 2008. In both those elections the Librrals ran ridiculously bad campaigns with unspeakably unpopular leaders. If it had been just a two way race the Tories would have had a majority dorbsurensincebPaul Martin and Stephane Dion nauseated people so much. The NDP helped siphon off a lot of the anti-Liberal vote -particularly out west and saved the country from a Conservative majority.

Liberals kept kvetching about the NDP "splitting" their votes, but they ignore thenfactnthat from 2004 to 2011 the Tory vote in Ontario has gone from 32% to 45%. It's about time the Librrals pulled their heads out of their assholes and accepted the fact that they actually lost far more votes to thenTories over the last four elections than they did to the NDP.

It was a similar story in Ontario. Poll after poll showed that about 62% of Ontarians HATED McGuinty and wanted CHANGE. If Andrea Horwath had not been there to give those leftwing McGuinty haters somewhere to go, Hudak would have won the election. We should all get on our hands and knees in gratitude to Andrea Horwath for saving Ontario from Tim Hudak.

Isn't this all supposition?

It sounds like the type of spin Brian Topp engages in.

My analysis was supported by a detailed discussion and quotation of examples, including specific provinces and ridings.  It's also something that other commentators have pointed out too.  Andrew Coyne has said that the NDP split the vote too.

Bob Fife said on CTV on election night that ridings like Vancouver South went Conservative because of the NDP vote.

Just because you don't think I haven't provided evidence, doesn't make it so.  And I don't have to provide 50 links every time I make a post.  I don't have  the time to do a doctoral thesis on every post.  Why don't you back up everything you say with multiple links proving your point of view?

See the double standard?  When you're an NDP supporter here you can say anything without proof.

No problem, ghoris.  You are entitled to your opinion of course.  I really don't intend to debate it much more.  I know I'm not going to convince you, as you are committed to the NDP.  I'm just letting you know what the numbers reveal and what the situation out there is.

The NDP said it would prevent a Harper majority in 2011.  Would you like me to link to a video of Jack Layton saying that in April 2011?

The question is, if the NDP couldn't even keep the Conservatives to a majority with its most popular leader, why do you assume it can defeat the Conservatives and form an NDP government with a leader that is likely to be less popular than Layton?

Yes, that's right, Debater. Those Liberal ridings went Conservative through no fault of their own. Poor Liberals. Always the NDP's fault.

I didn't say there wasn't Liberal incompetence or fault.  We are talking here about the mathematical reality that when the NDP vote goes up nationally, the Conservatives benefit.  Is it just coincidental that the Conservatives won their first majority in 25 years on the same night that the NDP vote surged?  There's a connection.  But I understand where you are coming from.  If I was writing talking points for the NDP I would say the same thing as you.  Obviously when one is a party that causes vote-splitting one has to deny it.  I understand.  It's politics.  I would do the same in your position.

You seem to be too thick to see how funny that is.

As we speak, you are absolutely doing the opposite of "I would do the same in your position".

By your own ceaselessly repeated logic, the third party is sucking away the capacity to beat Harper, so it should deferr.

The Liberals are now the third party, but you still argue that it is the NDP that should deferrr. 

points for entertainment value.

big time points for attempting difficult moves.

execution, needs work

Look Debater:

Lets assume your basic thesis is right. The NDP are the reason Harper got elected. The NDP will be a 3rd party, rump party after the election. The election was a fluke? SO WHAT?

You keep missing the point of all of this. There is no difference between the Libs and the Tories other then how quickly you guys give the middle finger to the poor, working, and middle class Canadians.

Either way, it is simply a matter of time. Liberal days are numbered. You can push back against that wave of water with all your might, the Libs in time will simply be washed away in the tide of history. THAT, is a fact.

No one counts out the Libs. I don't think anyone on this board has said that. We have argued about the effect of the NDP vote on "Lib seats going to the Tories". I really don't see how anyone could see that. My point is that give anyone or any group enough rope, and they will hang themselves. It is just a matter of time. As New Dems, the important is to keep working to make that day happen. That was the point of my post.

No, the Libs are very dangerous. That is why New Dems need to continue working hard. But, that day will come where the Libs slide back under the water, and no one will be there to throw them a life perserver, certainly not me.