Gambits
It seems clear that everyone agrees the Green Shift was not a good foundation on which to build a campaign. In life, you don't often win when your playbook consists of one play. (Although, ask the Miami Dolphins about having one *really* effective play and they might say otherwise.) The National Post in the linked editorial above say that the Green Shift was "the boldest policy gamble attempted by any major party since Canada-U. S. free trade." As we learned with Mulroney in the 80s, you win big with such a gamble or you lose big.
However, I fail to comprehend why smart pundits and commentators are not hammering Elizabeth May for her equally big and failed gambit. Running against Peter McKay was unconscionably dumb for the leader of a fledgeling party with some momentum. The Greens took 0.8% of the vote in the 2000 federal election (yes, less than 1%, that's not a typo). The preliminary results suggest that they took approximately 6.8% of the vote this time out. They have increased their vote total more than nine fold since 2000 - and they have yet to elect an MP. It's shocking. Maybe more galling since her inclusion in the debates was foreseeable. Maybe more so since she was taken seriously as a national leader despite agreeing not to run a candidate against one of the other federal leaders and going out of her way to praise him.
So, what would have been better for the Green Party, as a political party, for its leader who finished a strong second in a by-election in London-North Centre to run there again in the general election (where the candidate she lost to was defeated last night, btw), or maybe to run in a BC riding where the Greens have taken as much as 30% in a provincial election, or to sit the gallery of Parliament taking notes and promoting a new book? May should be turfed as fast as Dion will be, but alas I suspect that her popular persona will keep her around, thus ensuring we have yet another left-leaning political party with no hope of winning or successsful strategizing.
Green
That Post article makes the fantastically dubious claim that, "this vote will be remembered as a referendum on the Liberals' Green Shift...Canadians' passion for environmental causes has now been subject to a direct test...[i]t turns out that jobs and savings accounts still come first with the public."
First of all, what-the-fuck-ever on this referendum thing. Second, here is what the Post, the Globe and everyone is missing and which I only gripped moments ago - this election actually was a little bit about the environment, but not in some overarching, metaphorical, Oscar-winning, passionate-cause-ish kind of way. I've been arguing for more than a year now around the office (and to anyone else I can pin down to listen to me) that the party that best explains how solutions to environmental issues are to be accommodated in *the economy* wins. The fact is that in this election every party attempted to do so and the Conservatives convinced Canadians that they are the ones with the best plan at the moment. Enironmental activists may not agree and may not like it, but the Conservatives do have an environmental plan. It is timid, weak and unlikely to make any difference at all, but it is also a plan that you can use to convince Canadians that these things can be blended. The fact that the economy seemed to be under threat only worked to convince more people that thy should leave the Conservatives and their approach at the tiller. The other parties had their chances: the Green Shift is actually the best plan, but was explained as poorly as possible, Layton gave a speech in Novermber 2007 about "Green Collar Jobs," which had potential and this is what the Green Party is all about, but (I'm as shocked as you are) the Conservatives were the ones to get the tone right on this one. But, I believe this is the first step down this road, not the last, and everyone should be getting ready for round two.
Great expectations
I was at the convention that elected Jack Layton leader of the NDP. I voted for the man. I have not stopped feeling conflicted about him since.
The NDP's 2008 campaign was probably the best one in my memory (I don't remember much about the 1988 election except lecturing my vice-principal in the school yard one day about voting Tory, while leading a pro-NDP rally of school children who wouldn't be able to vote for almost a decade) and yet the expectations were even higher. Talk of besting the 1988 seat total was real and didn't seem totally far fetched. Despite taking the party higher than they have been since that time, despite important and impressive wins in Newfoundland, Quebec and Alberta, Jack looked disappointed while addressing the party faithful during his concession speech last night. Even the points in the speech when he tried to sound the defiant "conscience of Parliament" note were flat (to my ear anyway).
And, I think that this is the problem: Layton doesn't want to be the conscience of Parliament. Layton wants to win, but he can't. The NDP still can't build a big enough coalition. The NDP still can't get far enough away from its roots in socialism and the labour movement (in perception) to gain the trust of an inherently middle-of-the-road populace. It is, in fact, the same problem Stephen Harper has struggled with for more than a half decade: how to remain true to an ideology while persuading people who don't share to trust him.
Here are three areas I would suggest Layton address if we had 10 minutes to talk:
1) Policy - Not every platform can or should propose massive new programs run by a federal department that work almost exclusively in areas where the federal government cannot legislate. You acknowledged this tacitly in 2008 by proposing to expand the Conservative-initiated child benefit program. If you want to be about middle-class Canadians (or how about low-income Canadians) then offer them stuff without digging a hole that undermines important national programs. Stop pandering to interest groups and start thinking about what interests citizens. Offer a platform on which someone could govern and say "aww, fuck it" if someone else steals it in order to do so. Oh, and don't ever again let going after the Liberals or anyone else cause you to rule out a particular policy the way you did with a carbon tax. You should be for a carbon tax, especially one that would bring a commensurate reduction in income tax burdens for low and middle-income Canadians. That pisses some people off (see below).
2) Presentation - There is something about the way that you and the party use language that still resonates badly. The "kitchen table" stuff was used so much it was mocked and the syntax or grammar of it always made me think you were saying you could communion with tables. Referring incessantly to "ordinary Canadians" makes one wonder, am I part of that group or am I somehow exceptional, and which one is it better to be? (BTW- I really don't believe that people think of themselves as being "ordinary.") You still need to do something different in the debates. The zinger about the platform in the sweater was fine, but even seated at a table like a grown up you sometimes came across more like the high school debate team bully. For all his mistakes, Dion won his highest marks for his debate performances, which were described afterward using words like "measured" and "Prime Ministerial." Take note. Prepare your attacks and your defenses and deliver them like it's a "fait accomplis" that Canadians will get it and agree. Not arrogant, but smarter than the average bear. Spend the next two years building a narrative that can change, evolve and that plays to the aspirations of Canadians. Read, then watch video, of every speech Barack Obama has given since late 2007. You cannot be him, but he can learn a little something. Change can be a concept around which to build.
3) People - It is telling that your 2006 candidate in Toronto-St. Paul, Paul Sommerville, not only didn't run for you again in 2008, but he worked for the Liberal who beat him! I liked Paul Sommerville, both his substance and what he represented. The man was a banker for crying out loud! You need more people like him in your tent, not fewer. You need more people like me in your tent, not fewer. A lot of us feel like we've been chased away from the party with sticks and torches for not being ideologically pure enough. Many of us know policy well and we know when yours stinks. It's worth noting that while the federal party has yet to form government, NDP governments have been the norm in places like BC, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Nova Scotia could elect an NDP government soon and Ontario did once upon a time. Those governments have learned about making choices and not trying to do everything at the same time. Yet, it feels like you haven't learned much from them. Sometimes when the base is upset about someone you bring in, that's a good thing.
This was likely the easiest it will get for the NDP for quite sometime. The Conservatives are the dominant party of the day. The Liberals will re-group, possibly with a leader who knows something about building the party and being a politician, and they don't tend to lose seats without coming to re-claim them. The Greens may continue to surge. The Bloc is, for now, alive and well in Quebec (good idea attacking their credentials as "un parti progressiste" though). No wonder Jack looked a little down last night.
To close off this marathon and random post...
"Capital G was down to his boxers."
- George Bluth explains to his son Michael that he couldn't meet him during a prison visit because he was in the middle of an intense game of strip poker.
