A fair number of commentators have been suggesting (albeit usually sub silento) that Jack Layton is history and the NDP will fade into the mist.
Now, I do expect we Liberals will regain government (or at least opposition) but we will do so out of our own rebuilding and merit and not because of some twist of fate. Hoping the NDP will just 'go away' is delusional.
Jack Layton is sick but he isn't dead. I expect he will come back. Granted, he may not be the firecracker he was (at least not for a while) but in case anyone forgot, we won't have a federal election any time soon. And fully recovered or not he will have a united Party behind him and a government that will treat him with kid gloves out of fear of looking heartless and cruel.
Moreover, even if Jack Layton doesn't return, the NDP is not a newly born protest Party -- it has history and an impressive array of potential (and past) Leaders. There will be a Leadership fight and that can be bad (look at us) or it can be good (look at the Conservatives). Either way, Jack Layton is the NDP's flag bearer -- he isn't the NDP.
NDP without Layton could fall apart http://natpo.st/ohx6bZ
2 comments:
Quite right. I was a member of the NDP long before Jack Layton and I expect to remain a member well after he retires. Because if anything has characterized the NDP over the years, it's that the leaders have served in the interest of the ideals of the policy, rather than the party serving in the interests of the leader.
That said, I still hope he recovers and leads.
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