This is such a frustrating argument. Vote for the party you believe in.
If you think as supporters that we can't 'win', get up off your butts, you've got work to do. Spread the news...go door to door, join your riding associations. Write letters to the editor. Give up your time, energy and money and make the NDP message get out. Stop hiding behind your 'government job' excuse, or your fear of being 'blackballed' in your community. The other parties have none of these concerns.
Complaints about the mainstream media don't matter either. If we're going to make a difference we have to be pounding the pavement - not just arguing platitudes on a message board.
I don't agree with the Liberals nor the Conservatives. Arguing about which would be worse if in government for me is pointless. I want an NDP government, nothing less.
That means sucking it up, finding the financing to run fully funded campaigns across the country. It means ceasing our reliance of the Fed party to pick us as 'target ridings', and taking it upon ourselves to make this a truly representative party across 308 ridings (or at least a good 250). Things will only change once we purge ourselves of this 'loser party' mentality, and start acting like we are legitimate. In places from Cardigan to Miramichi, from Simcoe-Grey to Wascana - we need to stop the also-ran campaign that highlights our own inconsistency.
If we do this, and we lose - and Harper wins a majority, well, there is no shame in that. We did all we could. This kind of thinking that we have to vote for the 'lesser' of two evils does nothing but further deligitimize our party, and keeps us from reaching that full potential that I know is there - if we had the courage to make it so.
This strategic vote argument has persisted for so long for the simple reason that even we don't believe we can win, and we can't bridge that credibility gap that comes with running 100+ little more than 'name-on-ballot', $5000 or (often much) less campaigns. We have no answer to that reality - even if Jack says he's "running for Prime Minister" - its easily dismissed when that is the case. And since we will never have a major media machine propping us up, and no big business connections to bring in the big movers and shakers - we need to do it from the ground up. Let's not lament these realities - lets just get to work, and get out there at the grass roots.
This isn't really directed at rabble members per se - its more directed at that soft support group that sees itself as NDP but waffles come election time. That group often consists of members, surprisingly, but more often is just those moderately-left-of-centre pragmatists that are ripe for the picking, who just don't see us as a governing alternative for both cynical and practical reasons (above). We need them to open their eyes and see that there is a way - like they did in NS.