The polls, the polls, and everything but the polls, polling thread

Ok then, I'll start: vote ndp - and build the movements from the Socialist Worker. So, in reply to Stockholms diversion of the last thread, I will point out that the Trotskyiests advise voting for the NDP, whereas, I don't.

Nope. Of course not. You wonder if they have the people to carry a banner or not. In fact our "leaders" were at the head of the protest, people like Dave Coles, but definitely not Jack Layton. I would like to have seen the constablary bop a sitting MP on the head with his riot stick, but alas, the NDP was conspicuous by its absense... I believe. Anyone know how many NDP MP's made it to the G20 summit?

So, get someone to run in Trinity-Spadina as the "Socialist Workers Party7" candidate and we'll see how many votes you get. If you think that there really is all this untapped support for Trotskyism - why not run and sail into the House of Commons?

Correct. I failed to answer a question not asked, nor implied, by what you started and I was answering.

You attributed the lions share of the NDPs 1993 collapse to the Rae factor.

I said what about the appeal of Reform? You gave an argument using some ad hoc statistics- which doesnt hold water- than without the Rae effect in Ontario it would have been in its normal range of vote share. But it was WAY down everywhere. Just worse in Ontario.

Now you go from that to what is the substantive reason for the appeal of Reform? Hint, hint: 'betrayal of principles' gets people looking elsewhere.

If you want to raise that different question: the primary appeal of Reform among NDP voters was straight up polulism. And that was territory the NDP had been ignoring for some years. They could get away with that, until Reform came along. What you think of as betrayal of principles just isnt in there.

But since we're asking deeper questions: whats involved in the 'Rae factor' cutting drastically into the NDP vote?We know 2 major things were involved: 1 was what can reasonably enough be called 'betrayal of principles'. But another is that the NDP ruined the Ontario government fiscally.

Now a lot of the people who say the latter never liked the NDP and wouldnt vote for them anyway. They dont count.

But what the NDP allegedly did to Ontarios fiscal situation is a big one among those who did at least sometimes vote for the NDP.

Which one is bigger? I dont know. But you act as if it is essentially all about betrayal of principles. All we really know about that is it is an assumption that suits your purposes.

I disagree.  His comment is an example of the sort of flak that left-wing critics of the NDP get.  Granted it is usually worded in slightly more intellectual and thoughtful language, but it is always there.  Anyone on this board that points out for example, that the NDP violated it's own convention vote on Afghanistan, got that treatment.  Here's my other favourite, near and dear to my heart: the whole cancellation of provincial convention.  The party executive basically voted itself another extra year in office.  Oh, did I have fun on this board back then. And now, Layton isn't going to whip the vote on the gun registry.  Another policy plank sacrificed in the name of a few percent in the polls, and some far off victory.

But yeah, 17% in the polls.  Rock on... and anyone who says otherwise is simply a lunatic out to destroy the party.

1988 Federal Election Results by Province

1993 Federal Election Results by Province

Looks to me like the NDP experienced Ontario-sized drops in pretty much every province between 88 and 93 (took 30 seconds to find this).

I agree that there should have been MPs at the G20.

Ontario saw the most dramatic vote decline for the NDP (-70%), but it was very dramatic in BC (-58%) and Saskatchewan (-40%) as well.

I'll pitch on on what happened between 1988 and 1993 if I can, as I was quite active then.

The CES study of the 1993 election was called "The Decline of Deference" as I recall, and I think that fairly summarizes a bunch of different themes that were building up in Canadian political culture.  I have to say that the feeling then was a lot like that today: people were fed up with Mulroney after too many scandals, the preoccupation with the constitution while the country was reeling from the manufacturing and other slumps that seemed to follow the introduction of NAFTA, the extra Senators appointed to force through the GST, and his kind of preening mannerisms all factored in.  But (and it's not widely remembered) Jean Chretien was also seen as quite a bumbling opposition leader, and certainly a bit of an Oncle Tom.

The Meech and Charlottetown process incubated not only the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois, but also Mel Hurtig's National Party which was the beginning of the break between some of the Toronto intelligentsia and the NDP.  Many of those people (who were called "cocktail socialists" at the time, and were equally comfortable with the NDP and the Liberals) are the same folks we now see actively fundraising for the Green Party (Margaret Atwood jumps to mind right away).

Meech and Charlottetown were very similar to the long-gun debate, if you ask me, because the fault lines were almost identical, particularly within the NDP.  Audrey had put a lot of effort into aboriginal issues, and Lorne had put a lot of effort into the constitution and Quebec following up on Ed's work, but these kinds of issues were not being well received out west, and ironically the NDP got superceded on them by the Liberals in the first case and the Bloc in the second.  Clayoquot Sound pit native folks against forestry workers against environmentalists against the forest companies, presaging another big cleavage we now see.

The Ontario manufacturing sector just dissembled.  Rae's government made a hash of some of the fallout from that, but the NDP had little enough governing experience, and had been handed a very tough situation to govern in.  It might have gone better, but it was also a very tough row to hoe.

Also, the NDP governments which had been elected in 1991 (BC and Sask) were by 1993 most definitely out of their honeymoon periods (which we can attribute to the Nanaimo Commonwealth Society in the former case, and the fiscal restraint required to clean up the Devine mess in latter).

Another huge difference between 1988 and 1993 was the introduction of the permanent voters list and the end of regular enumeration before every election.  Debates rage as to whether this fact or the "decline of deference" was the bigger contributor to a huge decline in turnouts between the two elections, but let's just say that neither of them helped one bit.  Of course many of the people missed by a permanent voters list are a more fertile source of NDP support.

Lots of NDPers just stayed home in 1993.  Some went to the National Party which got as much as 5% of the vote or more in some key NDP ridings like Dave Barrett's if I'm remembering right.  Quite a few ... especially in Ontario ... went to the Liberals.  Others ... especially out west ... went to the Reform Party.  Any of the small progress that had been made with trade unionists in Quebec died, and they turned to the Bloc.

Also, the federal caucus was seriously divided along leadership lines, and pretty much every other kind of cleavage.  No-one agreed on the election strategy, and morale on the hill was the absolute pits.

So, I don't think there was any one particular reason in 1993.  Everything was going wrong.

Right now (and notwithstanding that outrageous, unsourced headline of Harris Macleod's in the Monday Hill Times), my external impression is that the caucus is well aware of the strategic dangers of letting those kinds of fault lines hurt them this time.  The diversity they represent is also their potential strength moving forward, in that if a good resolution is found, they are better positioned to make progress in many more parts of the country than some of their competitors.  The Liberals are completely missing in action amongst aboriginal people, and will do well to win back suburban Ontario ridings that they lost to the Conservatives last time, but are out of the running in many urban centres where they fell to 3rd place in 2008.

OK, I better stop now.

Ironically, Stuart, the NDP expected to wind up offside on Charlottetown, because they tabled a set of demands so extensive and extreme, they thought, that they fully expected the Conservatives to reject them outright.  To everyone's surprise, Joe Clark agreed to virtually everything in their package.

ETA: ... and Conservatives I've spoken to about that time say they were furious with Clark for the giveaway.

The "left" was already gearing up to oppose any agreement, regardless of what was in it, though (I remember one news conference of Judy Rebick's in Ottawa where Geoff York of the Globe took her to task for the gains for aboriginal people she was prepared to leave on the table, in order to oppose a "backroom deal by white guys", for example), and they weren't ready for the pivot in favour of a lot of the progressive gains that would have been made had Charlottetown passed.  The caucus (most of them) decided that it was worth it if one could settle the Quebec question once and for all and bring the national aboriginal organizations into decision-making formally, but the social movements weren't there.

But also, there was a lot of the "new kind of politics" airy-fairy stuff floating around the leader's staff, and the urban alienation ads they shot just didn't wash in BC.  You'll also recall the well-funded corporate on-side citizens' groups that Patrick whats-his-face organized to attack MacBlo's opponents ("Share Our Resources"), and they really hurt us by driving wedges between various aspects of our previous support base.

Not an experience I'd like to live through again, but I'm glad the folks running things now also lived through them and have no interest in repeating those mistakes now.

Also, I agree with your assessment of the 2000 campaign further up-thread.

We have seen this all before.  The parties are all oscilating in a channel, sometimes they hit the high side, other times the low side.  None of these numbers matter other than to make partisans feel happy or deflated depending on whether the wave is coming in or going out.  As someone who lives on the great lakes shoreline I can tell you another wave is just going to come in and it will have the same predicatible results as the one before it.

The next election whenever it comes will be the breaker.  I predict when people get a look at Iggy in the kind of focus only an election brings they will go screaming from the room and the Liberals will begin a stone-like drop that will make Dion look like a high tide.

Who says the Canadian public doesn't like high-handed arrogance? Based on results, it seems the reverse is true.

 

Amd I can think of an even better example from present-day Ontario politics: Peter Kormos.

Agreed that the NDP does not do enough to shift the political culture. I'd even say does next to nothing on that.

But two things need to be said about the remedy for that. There is a false dualism in the opposition of shifting the political culture and what you dismiss as purrsuing 'hollow victories'. If you dont pursue the incrementalist building strategy, you dont get a chance to do the longer haul work of shifting the political culture.

And you and others have a facile notion of how Reform shifted the political culture. As if it just takes making stronger stands, and then the folks not yet on your side will come around  to you.

It is true that the Reform Party's creation and rise happened in the context of the breakdown in Constitutional talks, the recession of the early 90s and the collapse of Mulroney's Conservative coalition with the rise of the BQ.  However, had they not been taking the stands they did, when they did, they would not have been in a position to influence the national political agenda.  Reform didn't do what it did because they were reading opinion polls and that was part of their appeal.  

Incidentally, does anyone have a link to the NDPs national policies so that we know what kind of government we will be electing when we get to 40%?

Kloch, you say "[Stockholms] comment is an example of the sort of flak that left-wing critics of the NDP get.  Granted it is usually worded in slightly more intellectual and thoughtful language, but it is always there."

And then you refer to a couple examples. One of which closest to your heart I was there in spades. Go back and look at the discussion. You will see that Stock and anyone else just baldly dismissive is outspoken 10 to 1 at least by me and others with a similar approach.

Its the same thing here fro that matter. Stock is just hit and run. I actually engage. You choose to respond to Stock, and trivialize what anyone else says as being the same thing just "slightly more intellectual".

===========

ETA: And by the way, I'm pretty sure Stock was not dismissive in that discussion about the ONDP you are referring to. At least not only dismissive: allowing that the process for the decision to delay the Convention was dodgey, and just pointing out that if there had been a real discussion the decision would have been the same. There would have been one or more others to do the schoolyard taunt thing. But my point stands- theres 10 times as much from people like me. And the taunters just do hit and run.

Excellent post.

Never discount the shallowness of some people's thinking. or indeed the operant conditioning at work.

The posters here have a lot of awareness of the issues of the last decades, but as much as they can enlighten about the shifting political tides , I've haven't seen anyone mention the change in the media that Canada and the US has experienced over that time.  In NA the ending of the Fairness Doctrine, and the rise of Can-West Global media, the Sun Group, Fox, and  right-wing radio parallels the shift to the right we have seen.  The cororations have realized the importance of dominating the media to maintain their control.

Because of this change in the media the Reform Party could start taking radical stances on the right, far outside the mainstream  If the NDP starts taking a similar path on the far left, they will only bring about their own fall into total insignificance like the miniscule parties that are there already.

Since when has the medie ever been on the side of the left? These diatribes about the unfairness of the media are the most pathetic excuse for failure that is routinely forwarded in the defense of the NDP. What seems to have been lost in the mix is the understanding that the left has always compensated for lack of favour in the mainstream media by active grass roots word of mouth campaigning on the issues, not trying to suck-hole the establishment.

Indeed the latter is precisely what the Reform did to establish itself as a force in the western electorate. The media was overtly hostile to Reform, and even the right wing media remained faithful to the Progressive Conservative brand up until the time that the highly motivated and enthusiastic grass roots campaign of Reform proved that the PC's could no longer hope to achieve power without them.

The NDP has the potential to do well in British Columbia in the next federal election.  It can take back a couple of the close seats it lost to the Conservatives in 2008 such as Surrey North and Vancouver Island North, and perhaps contend in one or two others.  The latest Harris Decima poll shows the NDP almost tied with the Conservatives in B.C. and it's also a province where the Liberals are still having problems so there is the potential for the NDP to emerge as the main alternative to the Conservatives there. 

"These diatribes"  "the most pathetic excuse for failure"  I don't why you have to use such hostile, contemptuous phrases.

No one can deny that public opinion in most countries in the world has moved to the right in the last decades. Privatization is seen as a reform.  In Europe spending too much on the welfare of the workers, is spoken of as part of the PIGS disease, the cause bankrupcy, and an economy that is sick.

Most quasi left wing parties that managed to get elected did so by blunting their message, and acting a lot like capitalist parities, only slightly better for the average citizen.  The Soviet block of course went into complete reversal.  And China became a cruel capitalist state.

So its the NDP's fault the socialism has not flowered in Canada?   The world has moved to the right, and attacking one of the few parties in Canada that stands against that drift is not going to reverse it.

This is a two-parter here.

I agree with you that complaining about the media is about as responsible and useful as complaining about the weather or the tendency of capitalism to concentrate wealth.

But the reality is that the media of the Cold War era did function differently than the media either before or since. In the world of FoxNews and prisons for unreported crimes, the mainstream media functions based on a different epistemology and theory of responsible journalism than it did in the Cold War era. In the Cold War era, the definition of objectivity was that which was most proximate to what one could empirically discern. Journalists would attempt to find out what was going on and then report it; when the report was filed, the capitalist boss would decide whether to kill the story because it was against their economic interests or let it run. Today, things don't work that way. Today, objectivity is conflated with a value called "balance" -- the two "sides" of an issue are determined and journalists dutifully report what both sides say. If one side is lying and the other is telling the truth, it is "unbalanced" and biased to indicate too clearly to the audience who is lying -- that would be unbalanced and unfair. Whereas in the Cold War, a story that there really weren't WMDs in Iraq might be killed by a capitalist newspaper boss, today, the news that there are not WMDs is "balanced" with the news that there are.

This is tough to adapt to.

In the previous era, story suppression was the biggest issue before leftists. Today, it's not suppression but distortion and not just distortion but the new episteme in which this distortion exists, an episteme that Stephen Colbert so effectively labeled "truthiness." The FoxNews project is so successful that an increasing proportion of people, when trying to discern the truth compare the "facts" to their feelings and, in the event of disagreement, go with their feelings, and this is supported by a media culture that lets the audience know that the position that there were WMDs in Iraq and the position that there were not are of equal legitimacy.

The more reality-based our news culture was, the less heavy lifting we had to do. And so we forgot the pre-Cold War era and the CCF strategies for dealing with it, back when the media was as untethered from fact as they are today in their pursuit of corporate interests. That's why it seemed like a good bet in 1960 for the CLC to buy itself a political party instead of a newspaper.

But now we're back in the era of Father Coughlin and William Randolph Hearst and we don't know what to do.

Of course this is just part of a bigger package. The relative objectivity of the Cold War media was part and parcel of the 20th century welfare states created to prevent communist support in the West. We didn't earn these social welfare programs that are being destroyed now -- our social order was created by Russian missiles pointed at us and held up by the Berlin Wall. Why should the capitalists of the world keep giving us welfare states and objective media when they no longer serve any purpose?

Yep. But even during the Cold War, the NDP was always looking for a shortcut. Current circumstances have only intensified the search.

Same question as I have put to others who say that Jack Layton only have to be heroic and tough like Reform and Preston Manning.

Name me one specific issue on which Reform was running against the grain of broad public opinion, and held to that. We're not talking about your general impression of who Manning and Reform was... name an issue.

You are asking Jack Layton to take a stand on particular issues.... that it will produce results in the end, like it did for Manning and Reform. So name an issue where Manning and Reform made a stand against the grain and it worked for them.

I think you are misremembering that.  The elites and most progressives did not support those positions, but it would be totally wrong to suggest there was not broadish support in the general populace.  That was what made Reform so dangerous.  Don't forget this was also the era of english only municipal by-laws too.

I'm looking forward to the actual vote, and then we will see how many Liberals will be hiding for whatever reason.

 

Action Talks, Bullshit Walks

 

http://alibi.com/index.php?story=20822&scn=art&submit_user_comment=y

We're no allies on gun registry, NDP tells Tories

 

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/were-no-allies-on-gun-regis...

Merci Alice.

Fourth Byelection Likely This Fall

 

http://www.punditsguide.ca/2010/09/fourth-byelection-likely-this-fall/

That's a good analysis, but I it could use more colourful and emphatic language, like "suck-hole", "diatribe" and "pathetic". If those aren't your style I am sure you can find some others that will fit. Good post though.

Would you call on the Liberals to support a private member's bill, if it were introduced by someone from the NDP or the block, that DID require byelections within one month of a vacancy?

Nobody is saying that Manning, Harper, and the right are too powereful- let alone your rhetorically trivilaizing ascription that people see them as "infallible". In fact, when referring to power, it was the media, not the politicians of the Right. Nor was the media called all powerful. It was just pointed out they are an obstacle for the left and the NDP, that the Right doesnt have to deal with. You turn that into something else entirely.

This fear of criticism of the NDP is a myth. Comfort food for folks I guess.  There are a few people here who engage in knee jerk defenses of the NDP. That happens around any organization or issue. I dont have a problem with criticisms, and agree that we'd be in sad shape if we had none. Mind you, we will never have to worry about a lack of criticism. Though I do think one of the NDPs persistent problems is a lack of volume or reach in criticism that engages.

I do have a problem with and will respond to what I see as inflated claims in criticisms. [And I'm still waiting for someone to back up that oft repeated nostrum of "Look at Manning/Reform/Harper, why cant Layton and the NDP have that kind of guts that [allegedly] is what gets the results."]

I'm starting at the bottom of your quote and working up. Next up: I dont know what partys are what, let alone your point. The Dems and Republicans are both inclined to turn on themselves. I guess you are saying its the Dems that are more riven with internal warfare, but thats not true at the moment, and really not a trend over the longer term. And besides, do you see the NDP as torn by internal strife? Hardly. If anything, we could use more of that. Whats your point?

"To conflate the success of Canada's hack fourth party with the success of leftist objectives is the height of hubris." Agreed. When I talk, I refer to the success [lack of] of the left as an overall beast. While some may give lip service to that, in practice those who referr to the left see the failures as the NDPs and the successes there are as the product of the social movements.

When I point out their role in the failures, and even get specific about it, I get ZERO response. I dont think I've ever got a response on that one. Too far outside the comfortable narrative I guess.

And the paramount failure of the left- both the movements and the NDP- is to systematically work on the underlying values.... which both the parliamentary and extraparliamentary Right has done in spades.

You glowingly referr to keeping up the good fight in protests. Which has achieved what now in the big picture? I'm not saying it did nothing, but overall where are we now? Continuing the good fight in marches is just doing what we've always done, regardless of the results. Which is the same problem with the NDP: continuing to do all you have the will and imagination to do- incementalist electoralism in this case.

You just think the marches and the organizing that does squat in outreach are better. Its just the flip side of the coin of failure.

Well this certainly gives Ignatieff a nice present to begin September with.  Seeing the Liberals even with the Conservatives and the NDP down may demonstrate that his recent strategy on the gun registry and other issues is paying off.  Could it be that he is finally becoming an intelligent politician?

Some of the regionals in this poll are a bit weird though, such as in Quebec, the Atlantic and B.C.

EKOS - just more BS summer silliness polls, eh.

 

Anyhoo....

 

Trois partis fédéraux courtisent Benoit Pelletier

 

http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/295435/trois-partis-federaux-co...

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Sorry to take so long to respond to your stuff, KenS. But there goes now:

This is a clever move, Ken. You’ve rendered Reform and the NDP incomparable. The NDP is an established party today and has a pre-existing base. Reform in 1992 was not an established party and was in the process of constituting its base. My initial argument was about taking positions that were unpopular with the general public; you are now suggesting that the issue is not public reception but the reception of one’s base.

But I’m happy to move to this new territory and make a comparison to the other 1990s populist I keep mentioning that people seem less interested in engaging: Glen Clark. After a series of brutal, savage welfare cuts and draconian new policies for social assistance recipients between 1993 and 1995, the most unpopular of which was the “three month residency requirement,” Clark was on the campaign trail and being grilled by End Legislated Poverty, a group one would be hard-pressed to describe as anything other than the core of the party’s base.

Instead of playing to voters he already had, Clark responded to ELP’s grilling by suggesting that they had better watch out or he would deepen the cuts and impose three month residency restrictions on other social services like schools.

Whether it is disagreeing with one’s base or disagreeing with significant numbers of undecided voters considering one’s party, we can find good examples of successful populism that does one or both. So the issue isn’t really whether this behaviour can be politically successful – it clearly can be; the question is whether this particular situation concerning the registry is one in which this course of action is likely to produce success.



Why is this relevant? This seems neither here nor there. You asked for an example of Reform taking positions that were likely opposed by many people who voted for them so I provided it. Explain to me why the duration of them holding the position is germane to the argument we are having.



Did we watch the same TV interviews and ads in 1993?



After having won over 50 seats and established them as the second-largest party in English Canada, something we have never pulled off.



You seem to have this idea that if you show that Reform stopped doing something in 1997, it proves that Reform didn’t successfully do it in 1993. I think what I’ll do is stop arguing history with you; it seems unproductive.



I think you have misread my comments. I used the term “infallible” to refer to how the far right in Canada treated Stanfield, Clark and Mulroney – I suggested that the right in Canada was strengthened by not treating these people and their party as infallible but instead vociferously criticizing them.



Is my unprecedented blacklisting from seeking a nomination anywhere in Canada a myth? Silly me, getting the sense that the NDP fears criticism just based on being told that I had been stripped of my rights as a party member because I suggested on my personal Facebook page that the party did something shameful and disgusting 15 years ago.



My criticism was not of you personally nor of the handful of knee-jerk defenders of party orthodoxy on rabble. It was of a party increasingly institutionally invested in silencing its critics.



People do back it up. You just establish changing criteria for accepting the evidence as valid.



I thought I was being pretty clear: the Democrats are dealing with almost no internal dissent right now; the Republicans are in the midst of a civil war. Currently, polls show the Republicans with a 10-point lead on the generic congressional ballot. And, despite the Democrats controlling the senate, house and presidency, they have managed to kill the public healthcare option, prevent any taxes from being raised, cut taxes and increase funding for the war. Furthermore, the Republicans are now on track to win the midterm elections for the House and, as of yesterday, are now leading in 28 of the 36 senate races, putting them on track for a narrow senate majority, even as their Alaska, Nevada and Kentucky senate candidates are actively attacking and campaigning against the party’s national leadership.

My point is that the Republicans are setting the agenda in America from opposition and are about to seize control of two thirds of the country’s government.



Sorry if I missed a post of yours Ken, but can you point me to it now.

That stated, I think you raise a very valuable point with which I agree 100%: critics of a doctrine of party infallibility must not replace this doctrine with an equally false doctrine of movement infallibility. There’s plenty of failure to go around.



Nicely stated. I think we really see this in the difference between the CCPA’s discourse and that of the Fraser Institute.



Where? I used the example of the anti-war and civil rights movements in the 1960s US but that even Glenn Beck does that these days. Mainly what I glowingly refer to is people being on the same team and being open and public in their criticisms of the team. I speak fondly of the Svend Robinsons, Corky Evans and even Garth Turners of the world more than I have anything to say about protesters.



Which protests are you talking about? I need specifics. Like most politicians, most movements and most people, most protests achieve nothing in the big picture. But it would be pretty crazy to assert the equally false opposite that protests, politicians, movements or individuals never achieve anything in the big picture.



I’m no more in a mood to exalt the Labour Day parade than I am to exalt the present-day NDP. I agree with you that the movement as a whole needs to do better.



Actually, I think no such thing and I have no idea where you would have developed the impression that I do.

Debater the regionlas have 15 point swings. Even when they are in favour of the dippers in other polls we usually take it with a grain of salt..which about how much truth is in reginoal polls of small small numbers....I am in favour of these numbers if it gets sit on the fence liberals to finally vote down a confidence motion instead of all the bluster on the fire arms registry which cant bring down the government anyway. Just another empty suit running the libs.

 

"Clever move" my ass. And I'm trying to keep comparability- apples to apples.

I said this already, but in case it got lost:

I emphasised that what is popular or not with the general public is irrelevant. Any party you are talking about, any position they take or might take, what is relevant is how its "universe" of supporters and potential supporters can be expected to respond to the positioning in question.

If Reform in 1993 before the lection was the Green Party, it might be incomparable to the NDP. But everyone knew that Reform was going to elect MPs- it was a question of how many. So Reform before the 1993 election had a electral "universe" the same as did the NDP. Its not at all just about the base. If you only get youtr base, even an established base like the NDP had and Reform did not, you are screwed. As happened to the NDP in that election.

Again, with its positioning on Charlottown Reform was taking no risks with its voter universe. Quite the contrary even.

And again, the claim is repeatedly made that the NDP should have "guts" like Reform/Manning/Harper:  just stating a position regardless of its popularity and stuck with it.

OK, show me once when those folks stated a position [that they did not back away from] that was going to risk strong displeasure of a significant part of their universe of voters, which is not at all the same as what is popular or not with the public in general and/or the media. You can do a ton of positioning against what the general public or the media favours. As long as chunks of your voter universe isnt going to be displeased, there is no risk for you. Its risking the displeasure of your voter universe that no party takes lightly. And show me where and when Reform has done this to the degree you are demanding of Jack Layton.

I knew you'd agree with that as a general statement. But I didnt make a general statement. I said specifically that in practice practical discussion of failures is about what the NDP does and doesnt do. And what it should be doing more of is where the successes come from: grassroots movements.

Tell me if thats not a fair characterization of you, and that is very common around here.

And again: the proof is in where the larger 'civil society' debate has gone. We all agree: to the right. But somehow, in practice, grassroots movements get the credit for what success there was... but the failure since, thats the betrayal of the electoral parties.

We're talking about the situation NOW- how we got here and what to do about it. Acknowledgement of what the NDP did in the PAST is part of the narrative of how useless it is now.

As an example- show me in this discussion where you and others arguing a similar point are NOT all about the NDP's failures, and what is successful comes from the grassroots movements.

I'm not arguing that the NDP is not successful.  It is successful, somewhat, at what it is trying to do which is to win more seats and eventually become the official opposition.  What I'm arguing, is that short term electoral success is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for social change.

The success I'm talking about is not winning seats. What you all bemoan is the NDP doing nothing about shiftine the terms of debate. Success or not on that account is what I've consistently talked about.

And when thats the topic, when we are talking specifics, which all of us are, the NDP gets the blame for failures. Social movements get the credit for what success there is. I've said a few times, so here it is again: we all agree that the left broadly speaking has failed in the all important department of terms of the debate.

And when it comes down to specific things that are wrong- not the easy acknowledgement there is a [general] problem- when we talk specifics, the failures are all those of the NDP.

I'll disagree with you there. Often Reform voters stated that they weren't voting based on the party's policies at all. Generally, Reform's votes came from people who disagreed on major policy issues but found the party and its candidates to be as sincerely anti-elite, angry and confused as they were.