Polling Thread: Part 1 Volume 5

Meet the new boss... etc

I really don't see how other critics of the NDP cannot get their head around the idea that the NDP can be BOTH a positive separate contribution to the Canadian political landscape AND an obstacle for the socialists/other left in Canada at the same time.

Excuse me for being such a "doctrinaire", i.e., marxian, socialist.

Well, if it's not TOO counter-revolutionary to post an actual, you know, polling result into the Babble canadian politics polling thread ...

Harris-Decima, n=2007 (MoE 2.2%), May 6-16; leadership numbers based on half-sample, May 13-16, n=1007 (MoE 3.1%)

CPC - 32% | Lib - 28% | NDP - 17% | Green - 11% | Bloc - 10% (40% in QC)

Leadership :: Favourable-Unfavourable = Score

Ignatieff :: 26% - 52% = -26
Harper :: 42% - 51% = -9
May :: 28% - 32% = -4
Layton :: 46% - 36% = +10
Duceppe :: 52% - 32% = +20 (QC only)

http://www.harrisdecima.com/sites/default/files/releases/2010/05/18/hd-2...

ottawaobserver wrote:

Well, if it's not TOO counter-revolutionary to post an actual, you know, polling result into the Babble canadian politics polling thread ... Harris-Decima, n=2007 (MoE 2.2%), May 6-16; leadership numbers based on half-sample, May 13-16, n=1007 (MoE 3.1%) CPC - 32% | Lib - 28% | NDP - 17% | Green - 11% | Bloc - 10% (40% in QC) Leadership :: Favourable-Unfavourable = Score Ignatieff :: 26% - 52% = -26 Harper :: 42% - 51% = -9 May :: 28% - 32% = -4 Layton :: 46% - 36% = +10 Duceppe :: 52% - 32% = +20 (QC only) http://www.harrisdecima.com/sites/default/files/releases/2010/05/18/hd-2...

I believe Broadbent was the most popular leader when we were at 22%, if I am not mistaken.

Actually it would be more like 12-13 years and that polling blip lasted about a month or two. 

I love this pining for the glory days of the NDP being all left-wing under Broadbent.  First off - for those old enough to remember Ed was constantly being carped at for not being left enough, green (although back then it was called environmental) enough, or charasmatic enough.  It is only after Ed left and became the fun grampa like elder stateman did we see so much love for everything he ever did.  Secondly, Broadbent has been a constant and vocal support of Layton's leadership.

The end result of the poll that is babble is that some people will never be happy no matter what 20 times out of 20 with a personal accuracy of their complaints plus or minus about 40 per cent.

I thought we covered that bit about the concrete definitions of different kinds of "left" perspectives in the last thread. The left opposition to Broadbent was from "socialists", because Ed was a Social Democrat. What remains in the NDP today is not even "social democratic". But again, NDP'rs are so adrift from any concrete understanding of left wing political thought, that they can't make these distinctions.

Left and Right are merely modifiers judged along an political axis, they have no real specific meaning. Hence, you are able to make confuse yourself by thinking that just because the left opposition to Broadbent was "left" that this means that it was the same kind of left opposition to Tommy Douglas, which was "communist", when in fact the left opposition to Broadbent was "socialist". Likewise, today, the left opposition to the NDP, could be any "Social Democrat" who supports a mixed economy.

These, communist, socialist, social democratic, are not all the same, even though they are all to the left of the NDP.

Adma... do you support a mixed economy?

Well George. It't not just about economy. It's also about process, which I discussed in the last thread, but you missed that. As for Layton, I have seen him to use the phrase. As far as I can tell the NDP has absolutely no economic policy whatsoever.

Wow- I am finding it difficult to agree with anyone in this thread now.

First the idea that the NDP has not shifted to the right over the last couple of decades I can't support. I believe the party has indeed shifted somewhat to the right. The handling of the economy, trade and public ownership have shown a rightward shift.

On the other hand, I do not agree that the party has moved closer to the Liberals. The Liberals as well have moved to the right on all those issues as well. As such the gap between the NDP and the Liberals has remained more or less static. The Conservatives have also moved to the right opening up roughly the same ground they always had from the Liberals on economic issues.

Socially I think the NDP has progressed but so have the Liberals leaving the Conservatives as the only party to have made no progress there. Ditto for the environment.

The NDP presently has considerable space from the Liberals in the environment, taxes, public program spending and initiatives.

Sadly, the context is that the political culture of the country has shifted to the right-- to that end there has been an enormous communications failure. The real battle as some have suggested is in fact over public ideology and political thought even more than the parties who will follow it-- even as the Cons follow to the right, the Liberals more or less to the centre and the NDP to the left. Of course as mainstream ideas shift to the right more room opens on the left potentially for a new party left of the NDP. Of course those who think the NDP is not left enough may have to consider if there is a value in fragmenting further the vote away from a party that appears to be the most left of centre that can still win seats.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Sadly, the context is that the political culture of the country has shifted to the right-- to that end there has been an enormous communications failure. The real battle as some have suggested is in fact over public ideology and political thought even more than the parties who will follow it-- even as the Cons follow to the right, the Liberals more or less to the centre and the NDP to the left. Of course as mainstream ideas shift to the right more room opens on the left potentially for a new party left of the NDP. Of course those who think the NDP is not left enough may have to consider if there is a value in fragmenting further the vote away from a party that appears to be the most left of centre that can still win seats.

Right. You are totally helpless when it comes to helping determine the agenda. You talk about public opinion as if it were some kind of natural event, like a thunder storm. There is not even the slightest sense that the NDP or the left has any ability, or even the responsibility, to present a clear economic and social model, and fight for the vision, and explain and propagate it.

One merely has to look at how much left wing activity that takes place on campuses across this country, to see how active the left wing voice is, and can be, but the NDP seems to make no effort whatsoever to capitalize on the ferment and build a movement. Ideas to the left of "centralist" positions are well accepted by very many Canadians, but the NDP ignores that in search of the fabled centerist mainstream, as if their really is a national "centerist" consensus.

Hijack

Forum speak, is when a thread is taken from one direction of discussion to another completely off course topic or many different topics in a short period of time.

Urban dictionary http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hijack

Yep. I thought that the Polling part was hijacked long ago.  Some strange observations about Canadian political affairs just begged, demanded to be answered, however.  Don't you think?

May 17, 2010 - 8:51am #1 (permalink)

All this talk of growing spines and balls and who knows what anatomical features next...

How about moderators growing something and bringing this back to a polling thread?

And the understanding is that nonsensical, ahistorical statements will be responded to.  

George Victor wrote:

Sean:

"First the idea that the NDP has not shifted to the right over the last couple of decades I can't support. I believe the party has indeed shifted somewhat to the right. The handling of the economy, trade and public ownership have shown a rightward shift."

 

Well sir, I think that economic thinking has shifted as everyone still working on the shop floor now watches the market. It's like the NYTimes. I said to an inveterate Times reader not long ago that at one point I thought the Times was just another right-wing, jingoistic decoration to the print world. Yes, he said, but now that it is quoted freely by centre-left commentators - particularly its economist, Paul Krugman - we can see how far to the RIGHT that U.S. POLITICS HAS ITSELF SHIFTED.

It would be strange if we thought of only the NDP shifting right, not as an attempt to maintain station within the spectrum of mainstreet politics but only some perverse play by its leadership. Some folks want the New Democrats to put a finger in the dyke of popular opinion, but that is only the stuff of (Dutch) children's stories ...having to do with their greatest fear.

George, I am not sure at this time that I have the energy or time to figure out exactly what you are trying to say except that I would like to know with a little less effort than this post requires.

I am not entirely convinced that there is an excuse for the left's failure to be coherent in values and policy but I will lay the blame for the shift to the right there. It is not just about power and money. It also has to do with laziness. An unwillingness to take the time to articulate what must be said. Certainly we may not be able to deal with the money and power of the right directly but we can expect a better job of connecting values, political ideas and policies better than we have been doing. At times as I watch Layton and others succeed in certain areas of communications I wonder if anyone gets the fact that we are missing the important stuff. The NDP is not moving by choice to the right-- at least that is not my impression. Rather it is retreating from failures to win the important debates of the day and regrouping further and further from where we need to be. So while I do not advocate, as Cueball does, the growth of more left parties I do believe that the NDP needs a good kick from within. Much of what we have failed to address is important and not even that radical. The excuse for the retreat is not that the opposing forces cannot be beaten or that people are too far from us but that we have simply failed to recognize what was most important and how to address it. I have long felt that this is in part due to distractions in petty scandals.

George, If I understand what you are saying -- it is in fashion for those who have no hope of being part of the capitalist "class" to dream about it and follow it and discuss it. But this is no more the ordinary person's experience than any other entertainment fiction that is thrown up in the sitcoms of the day.

It is not only a challenge for those on the left to express themselves to those who are listening (as a listener I have found the silence on important issues frustrating), there is also the huge obstacle of the vast majority who simply do not give enough of a crap to understand the most elemental aspects of their economic, social and political existence.

This is not an argument to give up but the dual challenge is  there. The frustrating bit is that if those on the left cannot express themselves well enough to those who are listening for them to do so how can we have any confidence that we will ever break through to those who have already tuned out.

SEan: 

"George, If I understand what you are saying -- it is in fashion for those who have no hope of being part of the capitalist "class" to dream about it and follow it and discuss it. But this is no more the ordinary person's experience than any other entertainment fiction that is thrown up in the sitcoms of the day."

I'm saying that workers now play the market. And for those that don't , they have their trust in their RRSPs handed over to their banker. And those that do neither, tend not to vote. That's the NDP's dilemma. Here's a letter I got printed in the Globe and Mail a month ago (April 19). The leading letter of the day:

"Grandma as collateral

Margaret Wente lists imprudence, misfortune, shifting cultural habits and the drain of 'supporting their kids until age 28' as reasons for her friends facing retirement without salmon teriyaki (Coming Soon: The Great Retirement Shock - April 17). Whe listened to the wisdom of Grandma, who warned that Hell awaits the spendthrift.

"However, until the mid-point of the 20th century, you had to put up Grandma as collateral to have any hope of a loan. The attractive offers of near-limitless credit have come in every post, for some time now. Credit became the (temporary) salvation of an economy running out of steam just about the time Grandma packed it in, actually. One wonders whether her counsel now, given her wider-ranging vantage point up above, would include the architects of our future monetary salvation."

Never saw a letter refuting that statement. I believe it describes the situation of all working sods today.

Sean:

"It is not only a challenge for those on the left to express themselves to those who are listening (as a listener I have found the silence on important issues frustrating), there is also the huge obstacle of the vast majority who simply do not give enough of a crap to understand the most elemental aspects of their economic, social and political existence.

This is not an argument to give up but the dual challenge is  there. The frustrating bit is that if those on the left cannot express themselves well enough to those who are listening for them to do so how can we have any confidence that we will ever break through to those who have already tuned out."

Who is not making themselves clear to the "vast majority" ?(I try to define them as "unread", but get swatted for elitist expression)

And everyone is "tuned in" to thoughts about their economic status and future. We only have (make that eight) decades to enjoy it all...if we don't smoke. Trick is, what to say about the provisions of jobs and a comfortable retirement if we haven't the foggiest about how to surmount the market...and won't even talk about it. The folks over the the Globe can talk about it - very plainly. That has to happen here.

South Africa went through a very substantial change (some years ago now). One of the remarkable things about the end of the Apartheid regime in SA was that ... while the Berlin Wall was coming down and the Soviet Union dismembered, etc. ... the SA Communist Party was growing by leaps and bounds. It was probably the only CP in the world to do so at that time. And a member of the SACP - Chris Hani - NOT Nelson Mandela, was a better bet to be the first President of the new SA. Hani was assassinated and the bankers were happy. The end.

Every country is different adma. Do your own homework.

Thanks N.Beltov for the Chris Hani reference.  I had a vague remembrance of it but appreciate the motivation to look a little bit more.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

I also object to teh characterization of th Liberal party as a left of centre party. It isn't and if a left party folded in with them, there would be no left of centre party.

The Liberal party is the party of power. They have almost no ideology. You can at times make a workign deal with them but to merge with them is to take democratic choices off the table.

If there was a merger between the NDP and Liberals, the new party would be different from the current Liberals. NDP'ers like Layton, Muclair, and Libby Davies, would change the chemistry of the new party. If progressives and moderates united under one tent, the new party would have a much stronger progressive ideology then the current Liberals. And unlike the NDP, the new party would be seen as a potential "winner".

Under FPTP, people like Layton, Muclair, and Davies, have been marginalized and shut out from power. It's a shame that many talented progressives who could have helped develop Canada have been cast out in the wilderness stuck in opposition because the electoral system marginalizes their numbers in the House of Commons.

If the NDP ever merged with the LIberals, progressive voices would have a strong position within the new party. Progressives would be much more likely to engage in party politics if there was a progressive party that had a good chance of assuming power. Many progressives eschew politics now because they feel the NDP has no chance of assuming power and effecting real change. Many more progressive would likely join a progressive wing of a new centre-left party that was likely to assume power.

In the best of worlds, we would have PR and the NDP and other left-of-centre parties would be represented in Parliament according to their significant numbers. If this were so, progressives would be currently creating real change in Canada. But we are currently stuck with FPTP where the Conservatives have a stranglehold on power with 1/3 of the vote because the non right-wing vote is split 3 1/2 ways.

Hopefully electoral reform will take place by the next election cycle.

OO, if the NDP is Socially Democratic, then so are the Liberals.  There is actually little to no policy difference between them (in so far as I can infer any policy positions from the NDP at all).

Geoff, that's not showing up in the polls yet.  In fact, the Liberals have lost their gender gap, and it's been going to the NDP instead, something they are worrying about.  I think that's at least in part why Ignatieff tried to raise the abortion issue around maternal health last January.

You might want to point out to your women friends that one-quarter of the Liberal caucus is pro-life, by the way, and that they couldn't even get their own motion on abortion funding passed through the House in spite of support from both the Bloc and the NDP.

Geoff wrote:

The NDP's biggest immediate headache is the growing influence of the misogynist fringe of the Harper Conservatives.  I've spoken to progressive women who are my friends, for whom I have the greatest respect and who have been tireless supporters of the NDP.  They are terrified of the increasingly shrill, anti-women agenda of Harper and company - to the point where they're seriously considering throwing their support behind the Liberals in the next election.  In their opinion, the danger of a Tory majority trumps the ineptitude and hypocrisy of Iggy and his stooges. 

Although I wouldn't vote Liberal for love nor money, I sympathize with their fears.  However, if that sentiment spreads among women across the country, Mouseland could be in for a rough ride when the writ is dropped.

Exactly.    And letters to the editor in the smaller dailies show both mainstream and fundamentalist women actively writing from their very seperate perspectives.  Having "smoked out" the Cons hidden agenda, one only hopes that the resulting dustup will cause the bastards real grief.  I think it's going to depend on younger women turning out at the polls...in support of choice...  Who knows what will get their male counterparts off their whining, alienated asses.