I hope Joe Cressy stages a huge upset and holds Toronto-Spadina on Monday.
But if he doesn't, the federal NDP will be in a serious state of crisis...a crisis caused, more than anything else, by the party leadership's relentless obsession with taking "the centre ground"(as defined by the MSM and the Financial-Industrial-Complex.
The party has abandoned any notion of transforming the country's economic system.
It has made it clear that its foreign policy will be just as militarist and market-imperialist as that of the Cons and the "Liberals"-even though "a strong defense" and war itself can never lead to anything left-of-centre people would want in any future situation.
It has committed itself to ignoring poverty and putting the right-wing obsession with balanced budgets(i,e., permanent austerity) above what ANY left-of-centre party should always put at the top of its priority list: meeting human need and defending human dignity.
It has essentially abolished internal democracy and removed the leadership from any obligation to engage the rank-and-file, beyond the meaningless formality known as a "leadership review". The rank-and-file no longer gets to even have any real say in the party electoral program...thus guaranteening that that program will say nothing(and thus guaranteeing that a federal NDP government will DO nothing important once in power-since no party in history has ever governed on a radical program after being elected on a bowl of mush).
It has held to right-wing positions that have no support among anyone who would even THINK of voting NDP-such as Mulcair's pointless cheerleading for the status quo on the I/P issue and his neo-Jack Webb on DRAGNET-stance on pot.
And the leadership has even held up the discredited right-wing anti-worker militarist Tony Blair as a model for a left-of-centre head of government.
None of this has gained the NDP any greater support federally...and thus none of it can between now and the 2015 election.
And most of what I listed above has allowed the "Liberals" to do something that should never have been possible...win back left-of-centre voters(even though they don't deserve them)by arguing that there's no reason for those voters to vote NDP since the NDP isn't to the left of the Liberals anymore.
How does the NDP get out of this mess?
And is there not a lesson here for ANY left-of-centre party...the lesson that ceasing to be CLEARLY left-of-centre, that obsessing on being "mainstream"(and on assuming that everyone in the "mainstream" hates the idea of radical change and are obsessed with making the left check its soul at the door before being allowed to get "power")is the path of futility,in defeat OR "victory"?
This may be a pivotal moment for the party. I hope this thread can help spark the ideas that could save the NDP from irrelevance and uselessness.