NDP Begins Race for a New Jack

Will Brian 'Topp' the pile? What will Paul Dewar 'Dew'? Will Thomas Mulcair, umm, Mul-scare away voters?

We have just one more week of bliss before the House of Commons once again sits and makes official the end of the summer. The Conservatives are set to introduce a slate of their election promises – that crime omnibus bill that no one but die-hard Conservatives thinks is good policy, repealing the gun registry, etc. – but all eyes will be on how the NDP's batch of hopeful leaders-to-be handles the challenge of being in the leaderless opposition. The Toronto Star's Tim Harper wonders how the likes of Thomas Mulcair, party president Brian Topp, Paul Dewar, Peggy Nash, and Peter Julian will manage the next six months after the executive ruled that no leader could say a bad word about another member of the NDP. “New Democrats need only look to the shrunken Liberal caucus for a reminder of the damage done by years of leadership battles,” says Harper. Of particular interest will be the bout between Brian Topp and Thomas Mulcair, the perceived front-runners, because of their Quebec roots and roles in getting that province to vote orange on May 2. This early in the race, though, offering odds on the potential leaders is pointless. All that's certain is that the NDP leadership race will at least keep the party visible well into next year.

Kicking that race off is Topp, who just this afternoon made his leadership ambitions official in a news conference that Paul Wells of Maclean's observes “seemed designed to scare Mulcair out of the water before the pool party even begins.” Topp already has the support of Ed Broadbent, the former leader who similarly annointed Layton back in 2003, he speaks flawless French, and had another leading MP from Quebec on hand, Francoise Boivin, to ostensibly say Topp's got that province's support. On the other hand, Topp's never ran for office in his life, while Mulcair has spent the past decade or so in both provincial and federal politics. The latter is the closest thing to a household name the NDP can boast at this point; the former is a backroom brainiac, albeit one who drew up the Quebec breakthrough years ago. Wells judges that Topp has so far handled himself ably in these early stages, and clearly established his NDP bona fides at the news conference today (yes to Palestinian statehood, yes to deficits in a recession, maybe on the coalition question). But there's still a long six months to go before that vote.

Steve Janke of the National Post notes that leadership machinations aside, the NDP has continued to creep toward pragmatism by declining to give extra weight to votes from labour unions at its conventions. Janke says the move shows the NDP have stolen a page from the old Liberal playbook – “campaign from the left, govern from the right” – and flipped it on its head, so as to seem moderate and sensible in opposition before going hard left while in office. This strategy, as Janke sees it, is designed “to keep the lid on Libby Davies and her pals” in labour wing, so as to avoid a repeat of the 2001 leadership convention when Davies launched the “New Politics Initiative” and threatened to secede from the NDP to begin a more socialist, pro-labour party. The last thing the NDP needs now is to get mired in a debate over socialism because a), they're not a socialist party; b), this is the stuff Tory spinners dream about; and c), a heck of a lot of Canadian voters unfortunately lump “socialism” in with “communism” and other tainted -isms connected to point b). Janke's stereotypical conclusions about what an NDP government would do in office notwithstanding (“high taxes, expanded and intrusive government, the erosion and elimination of individual rights and privileges,” etc.), he's right about what the party needs to do to obtain that goal in the first place.