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NDP leaders suffer no consequences for big losses: Left Chapter blog
November 2, 2015 - 4:38pm
A good critique;
these guys seem well to my Left, but their electoral analysis bang-on;
Dion and Ignatieff were run out of town after defeats, but Mulcair's fiasco seems to have NO consequences:
http://theleftchapter.blogspot.ca/2015/11/as-liberals-and-conservatives-look-for.html
Why should the "leader" suffer consequences? Didn't absolutely everyone follow the leader? Were they being threatened with torture, excommunication...? Yeah I know, some of them were excommunicated (Wheeldon, Manly, Natanine, Jonasson...) - but seriously, if the NDP is a party that does whatever the leader says, I seriously suggest it should disband and start from scratch.
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Why should the leader suffer consequences?!? (come back Mr Ignatieff, all is forgiven). Because they lost!
The leader sets the tone, repeats the party agenda to a broader public, and is ultimately responsible for adopting an electoral campaign course;
in 2015, all of those were arguably failures, but Mulcair stays on indefinitely ... people follow the leader because he/she articulates/reflects their views, that's obvious
so if this was OK, then continue ... next up, 20 seats
Today is the two-week anniversary of the election, and Trudeau hasn't even been sworn in yet.
If the left hasn't shaved Mulcair's head and paraded him in the streets yet then they deserve all the electoral failure in the world.
The Next Federal NDP Leader thread was started while voters out west were still going to the polls. If only the NDP could have appointed a new leader ON ELECTION NIGHT maybe they would have won.
exaggerating like that does not address the question, Magoo;
the article attached very calmly shows that in other Canadian parties, a losing leader has either stepped down or been asked to leave fairly soon; in the case of the post-2011 Liberals of Trudeau that cleared the ground for a winning campaign;
no cause for shame with Mulcair, he tried his best with a losing strategy but one that had his full imprimatur;
the bigger question is, does the NDP continue as a third party forever? or can it gain and hold new slices of the electorate? history suggests third-partydom satisfies many members and supporters, but it defeats the purpose of running a campaign to win
In Burnaby we always played down the central campaigns cult of the leader that really started with Jack. We were trying to elect an MP not Jack Layton. Look at the NDP website. It's logo and embedded in most ads has Mulcair in big type and NDP in smaller type besides it. It was the Mulcair campiagn not the NDP teams campaign. He needs to go because he has no room to grow except for hoping that Trudeau's voters will switch to him next time. Does he need two elections to prove that this is a losing strategy? Hell in BC we have been trying variants on the front runner campaign for over a decade with the same result over and over again.
When I saw the caliber of the NDP MP's elected from Quebec last election I was excited for the future of the party. Then the silencing started. In the face of the largest and most politically astute youth revolution in North America the Quebec MP's were told to sit on the sidelines. So why would those motivated youth vote for an old hack and his party when they didn't support them when they were fighting the good fight.
I voted for Mulcair as leader in 2012. I am against him leading into the next election
I want him to step down in early 2018. Mainly because even if he started acting like the left wing leader we want him to be he would not be believable. People would remember the balanced budget promise.
What, exactly, is "the question"?
Sure, Mulcair could don sackcloth and ashes right now, but it's not like he'd be replaced with the new, vibrant, relevant leader everyone craves right now.
All the NDP would do is choose a lame duck "interim leader". Other than the drama of Mulcair falling on his sword while everyone piously says "It's a shame, but it's for the best", exactly how -- two whole weeks after the election -- does this make any kind of strategic sense?
If the NDP membership don't want him, they'll have their chance to say so. Honestly, what's the hurry??
I'm not saying this, BTW, because I believe that Mulcair needs to be leader-for-life. I'm saying it because I just don't see the hurry. Can someone tell me why it's already too late, with only 1146 days left until the next election?
To clarify my last post. I want him to step down not for the result but for the campaign and the corner he's painted himself into.
There's also the age factor/generational change issue.
Mulcair is now 61.
Rarely in modern Canadian history has someone become a First-Term PM at that age, and Mulcair will turn 65 in October 2019.
The NDP probably needs someone Nathan Cullen's age.
My main issue with Cullen is he wanted to cooperate with the Libs. I'm okay with cooperating with the greens but not the Libs.
Also Cullen seems too similar to Mulcair. I'm hoping for REB.
Well they are certainly going to make it difficult for dissenters in what seems to be shaping up as a very tightly controlled caucus. And traditional leadership dominance is trumping even the limited reforms agreed earlier:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/11/02/mps-from-all-parties-getting-col...
Someone should ask @MPJulian what justifies walking away from these limited reforms? To ensure no leadership challenges until a controlled convention?
I voted for Mulcair as leader, too, although not until the second ballot. I'm not in a rush to see him go, regardless of his role in a losing campaign, for the reasons outlined by Mr. Magoo. We need a little stability as the caucus gets organized, so there's nothing to gain at the moment by Tom's stepping down.
However, I do see him now as an interim leader, and I think he should step down soon enough to allow a new leader to get her or his name out there. Further, I think the party should seriously consider a make-over, even the name. I always resisted the name change idea, because I thought it was superficial. However, after BC, NS, ON, and now federal, the name NDP just seems to scream "loser". We need a bold new plan, based on social democratic principles.
Of course, convincing the party poobahs will be a hell of a job. They don't take criticism very well, even in the face of the obvious.
I would have thought that Mulcair's election loss would lead to more challenges from people who had kept quiet until now in the hope that he was going to bring the NDP to the top.
Many Conservatives stayed quiet about their concerns and anger towards the way they had been treated by the Harper PMO because as long as the CPC was winning they were willing to grin & bear it. Now some of them are finally speaking out a little.
You'd think the same thing would happen with the NDP now that Mulcair's strategy has not been successful.
The MP's are the ones that need to be on board. If the caucus decides enmasse for real change it will be no trouble getting the membership onside. Then the insiders will lose their power and the party can be truly rebuilt. I am not going to hold my breath till it happens.
I think the best way forward now would be to set up a leadership convention for around March/April 2018. Mulcair could remain as leader until then and he would also be free to be a candidate in that election if he wanted to. In the meantime the NDP could hold the Liberals to account inParliament and also renew and reinvigorate itself.
I agree we need the caucus and the membership to stand together, demand the party be re-invented, and toss out the deadwood that has been pulling the strings behind the scenes for far too long.
It will require that Mulcair step down before, 2018, however. Such a late departure will not leave enough time for the fundamental renewal that is necessary.
If the same old cabal hangs on to power within the party, I think we will become the Social Credit of the left - a tiny rump of increasingly irrelevant cranks. What we need is an alternative vision of Canada and a new name that reflects that alternative vision.
NDP = losers in the minds of too many Canadians. We proved them right in this election.
I think the return to the three spot was inevitable simply because NDP gains were made because of a lack of a strong Liberal option not real support for the Dippers. Mulcair moved the party more towards the centre this time around, but I doubt that the little shift made a difference. In my opinion, the only thing that could have saved the NDP in this election was a poor performance by Trudeau.
For the role of barking at the government, Mr. Mulcair is the perfect leader.
If, and it remains a big "if", the Libs electoral reform promise can be translated into proportional representation for 2019, it will be a new ball game. For those who have already written this off, I would ask that you reconsider until there's some evidence - i.e. what does the process look like, who's appointed to the all-party committee, etc.
While there's a growing consensus that the "balanced budget" plank was central to the NDP's slide and defeat, it's too simplistic to suggest that they ran on the most "right-wing" platform ever as some people have asserted. The NDP's platform was a mixed bag but included progressive planks as pointed out here and here.
I seem to recall the NDP unanimously supporting the "no fly zone" bombing raids over Libya not long before the 2011 election and a one-time extension thereafter. Qadaffi was lynched a few months later and a failed state developed after that. Yes, the NDP backed away from the bombing raids eventually but I can't think of another example of a more right-wing policy than supporting Harper/Obama on the bombing of Libya.
Then there was the NDP's 2011 election day comments about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden (remember, OBL was killed on the eve of the election allowing Harper to slip one more partisan, flag-waving speech into their campaign after the black-out period began). Layton praised "the troops" and said.
That didn't work out too well.
I prefer this 2015 plank from the recent election.
This interpretation is inconsistent with the polling numbers in mid August, which showed the NDP almost 10 points ahead of the Liberals. Clearly, the Liberal campaign from that point on was very effective, and the NDP campaign was terrible. If these had been reversed, all the evidence suggests that the result would have been reversed as well. To call the Liberal victory "inevitable" is magical thinking.
as late as Labour Day, the NDP was polling in the 30s, enough for a strong minority govt.;
the Mulcair team misjudged the electorate and, worse, replayed the 2014 Ontario election allowing the Liberals to play to its Left; while everyone in 2015 was thrilled with the Alberta results, the stronger NDP trend recently was running a sensible-shoes centrist campaign followed by a very weak result (B.C., Ontario)
-- Mulcair did that again
look back at the press clips in May 2011, when Ignatieff led the Official Opposition party to deep 3rd place, his role was highlighted by everyone, so yes, the leader wears the hat when electoral failure comes
I think that it is more magical to think the 2011 results were anything more than an anomaly. With the scandals of Chretien in the past and the mounting scandals of Harper a more pressing concern, it was easy for previously disillusioned Liberal voters to move home. Harper spent a lot of money advertising that Trudeau was not ready over the last couple of years. However, once the campaign started and the public got to see him in action, answering unscripted questions and sparring with his opponents that idea was put to rest and center left voters quickly returned to the red tent.
I don't think Mulcair could have done anything differently with his policies or the campaign to stop this from happening; he's simply not JT. His only hope was that Trudeau faltered.
I disagree. Mulcair could have been headed for tomorrow's swearing-in as PM if he and the NDP campaign had been capable of seizing and holding the public's imagination.
Trudeau would almost certainly have done significantly better than Ignatieff but a result with Tom Mulcair in either 1st place or in 2nd place with Harper a weak 1st and vulnerable to a confidence vote was well within the cards.
There were always going to be limits on the ability of a late-middle-aged, rotund man, with a brusque demeanour to project the level of energy and optimism that Trudeau was certain to bring to the campaign. That meant that Mulcair had to offer a different sort of energization, through ideas and policies. In the event, he compounded the lack of visual energy with a lack of imagination. The F-35s, no deficits, safe-hands approach was fatal as he was then losing out to Trudeau on both physical and cerebral appeal. I am not of course suggesting that Trudeau is as bright as Mulcair but that his campaign was more imaginative.
There was a reason for 'nice hair". "not ready" "just isn't up to the job" and so on. Both Harper and Mulcair were well aware of Trudeau's visual appeal and wanted to portray him as a callow lightweight. Had that succeeded through the writ period, Mulcair would have been the beneficiary of the desire for change. Instead, Trudeau surpassed expectations and when Mulcair tried to pivot in the final four weeks, the TPP was too little and trying to move pharmacare and national daycare up front went nowhere as the NDP had not shown the courage of its convictions earlier on.
Had Mulcair run a campaign fundamentally different from the same old same old politics, he wouldn't have alienated a large part of the change vote and likely would have been the beneficiary of the ABC vote.
Trudeau did the right things in the election, and avoided the wrong things. But if Mulcair had also done the right things, instead of wrong thing after wrong thing, he would have come out on top (at least relative to Trudeau) because he went into the election with the advantage.
Mulcair's lead in the polls was given to him by Rachel Notley, so it's hard to know whether he would have kept it anyway, but I agree with some of your other points.
Another way that Mulcair came across as similar to Harper is when he joined in with Harper in lashing out at Trudeau the day Trudeau criticized the cost of the F-35's and the long drawn-out acquisition process.
As Sean in Ottawa said here on this board, it was an error in judgment by Mulcair to jump into the F35 fray with Harper in the way he did. Even Conservative commentator Tasha Kheirriden said that it was an NDP-CPC "tag-team" on the F35's.
Woulda coulda shoulda but didn't, too late now.
http://montrealgazette.com/news/national/opinion-a-new-generation-is-lea...
Never say never but I would say that chances are we won't be going back to having a baby boomer at the head of government again. This is generational change.
Yes, the editorial in The Montreal Gazette makes a good point: Mulcair is too old to be Prime Minister.
Mulcair was already taking his chances in this election by not only being much older than Justin Trudeau but older than Stephen Harper as well.
In 4 years from now, he will be 65.
What's the likelihood of a 65-year old becoming a first-term Prime Minister?
And Jeremy Corbyn is 66. Both rather look like "boring old white men", as well.
A reason one has to nuance this generational stuff. Of course newer leaders will tend to have been born later than older ones, but the idea of throwing older people away is as silly as putting obstacles in the way of the emergence of younger ones.
Generations and cohorts exist, for historical and cultural reasons as well as obvious biological ones, but have become a marketing substitute for class, sex, racialized and other underlying confrontations within societies.