Michelle, you've touched on one of the first things about Jack that won me over to him. He didn't have a seat, but instead of muscling aside an incumbent in a safe seat, he decided he wanted to represent his own constituency. I would think that parachuting in a candidate with no ties locally would be a huge disservice to Layton's legacy.
Layton running in Danforth also made a positive impression with me as well. It was also a gutsy move at that time - NDP did not have a single Toronto seat. I thought Layton was crazy to run in Toronto. How time has changed.
Its not as if Layton had any choice. Where else but Toronto could he have run??? The NDP only had 13 seats when he became leader - are you suggesting he could have taken the "easy way out" and demanded that Yvon Godin step aside so Jack could run in rural New Brunswick?? Jack's whole leadership campaign revolved around his ability to re-establish the NDP in major urban centres like Toronto...his leadership would have crashed on ther launch pad if he had then turned around and said he would move to Winnipeg and boot Judy W-L out of her seat. Here was a man who had sat on Toronto city council for almost 20 years and was a household name - why would he have wanted to be NDP leader at all unless he believed he could win a seat in Toronto.
