The New Democratic Party first ran for office (as the CCF) in 1935 and has contested every federal election since – three-quarters of a century of electoral history.
It is therefore not a small thing that Brad Lavigne holds the gold medal as my tribe’s most electorally successful NDP national campaign director. Or that Anne McGrath co-holds that award as the most electorally successful NDP chief of staff (the Hon. Bill Knight and Robin Sears hold the silver medal as co-national campaign directors in 1988. Your humble blogger is the bronze winner in that role in 2008… for the time being).
Jack Layton is a man of many abilities, including his ability to attract some of the best political talent currently working in Ottawa.
To their eternal credit, Mr. Lavigne and the NDP campaign team didn’t try to rerun an old playbook in this campaign. They wrote a new one – a brave thing to do in politics. There were voices in our tribe insisting that it is a fundamental mistake for a federal NDP leader to say he is running to be prime minister; or to say he would like to lead the federal government; or to argue he has the better plan for the economy as well as for social programs; or to take on the Bloc Québécois in Quebec; or to build a new fundraising system; or to build a new organizing network; or to reach out to some of the best communication and advertising professionals in both English and French; or to do many of the other things this campaign did.
But the 2011 election proved something that I think New Democrats will never forget: If you leave behind your old playbook and write a new one, you just might leave behind your old results and get new ones, too.
We have much to be proud of in our history book. Mr. Layton and his team have chosen to write a new chapter. A gold medal performance!
(Here's another notable medal series: Bronze medal for the NDP's 1988 by-election victory in Chambly, it's first elected Quebec MP. Silver medal for the 2007 NDP victory in Outremont. Gold medal for the 2011 NDP sweep in Quebec. All three won by the same riding and then regional campaign director – Raymond Guardia – who, remarkably, managed all of these victories.)
What then to make of the results? No progressive can welcome the election of a majority Conservative government. But in our best long-term interests, we shouldn’t be too churlish about it either. When the time comes, hopefully in a few short years, we will be looking to Conservatives to accept their replacement by a fearlessly (if prudently) progressive government, without raising existential issues about the country or our democracy. With an eye to setting a good precedent, Mr. Layton was therefore wise to congratulate Stephen Harper on his victory, and to pledge to work co-operatively with the new government where possible, while working diligently to offer Canadians what will be (by our lights) a much better alternative.
What does Mr. Layton have to work with to do that? A remarkably good hand – if played well , that’s what.
In his period as leader, Mr. Layton has synthesized the federal NDP’s optimistic, sunny idealism with the step-by-step, fiscally prudent pragmatism of successful NDP governments at the provincial level. He emphasized this point in his acceptance speech Monday night, pointing to the strong record of both achievement and fiscal responsibility by NDP governments (Douglas, Lloyd, Blakeney, Romanow, Schreyer, Pawley, Doer, Harcourt, Dexter, etc. – a very strong tradition of good government indeed) and pledging to carry that tradition forward into federal politics.
To this Mr. Layton has now added the Liberal Party’s former core electoral base, with a much healthier additional presence in Western Canada.
