While the Liberals debate whether it is better to think, act, think about acting, or act like they're thinking, I asked NDP strategist Brian Topp what he imagines his party has to do to take best political advantage of the Grits' (temporary) disarray.
“We need to do our job.
That means being a constructive but strong and determined opposition party in Parliament -- the contrast will serve us well.
That means getting the messages the people of Canada sent us in the election.
Some were good messages: They sent more of us to Parliament; they like our Leader; they like our basic principles (in significantly greater numbers than support the basic principles of the Conservatives); we've earned mandates across the country, including in Alberta, Quebec and Newfoundland.
Some were messages about work left to do. I think it boils down to this: Canadians want us to do a better job earning their trust before giving us the governing role.
We need to think extremely carefully about that.
If we do, successfully, we'll keep moving forward.”
I was interested in the latter half of Topp's assessment and asked, when you say the party has to think carefully about how to better earn the public's trust, what exactly do you mean? Does it have anything to do with moving further in the direction of the pragmatic populism that so marked the campaign. When I interviewed Jill Marzetti (Peggy Nash's campaign co-chair) she made a point of contrasting the party's pragmatic tradition with its "movement" tradition. Could you be a bit more specific about what the party has to think about so that it can be better prepared to govern?
Topp replied:
“What I like most about the campaign the New Democrats have just completed is that many party members aren't satisfied with it, or with the results.
We ran a good campaign. Our people want to run an excellent campaign.
We had an honourable result (second-best result in our history. Our best result in 20 years. The best result this 48 year-old has seen since I was 28). But our people, increasingly, want to win.
I love that our people now want to win.
And I love that our people are coming around to the view that it is possible to do so.
So what is to be done, you ask?
My answer is that we'll be thinking very carefully about that throughout the life of the new Parliament.
And that most everyone in our family is going to have a say in it - our Leader; our Caucus; our party elders and veterans; our Provincial and territorial leaders and elected officials; our elected party officials and delegates; our allies in the labour movement, in academia and throughout the broader democratic left.
We're going to need to take a look at how our successful sister parties in other countries moved forward. Possibly without copying their leaders' speeches.
We're going to need to carry forward a lot of what worked for us in this election into the new Parliament and the next campaign -- reasonable amounts of focus, discipline, and issue relevance. Seeking to avoid proposing anything that requires too complicated an explanation, learning from the mistakes of our colleagues in other parties.
So then to the issue of 'earning the public's trust'.
What we have done between 2004 and 2006 is to rebuild our connection to our base.
Most people who have voted for New Democrats in the past are doing so again.
Now we need to persuade people (something in the range of two million additional people) who have never voted for New Democrats to do so.
That means sounding sensible to them on the issues they care about.
Today that is the economy, health care, the environment. Other threshold issues in federal politics include foreign policy, First Nations issues, crime and justice.
In my view, we need to be sure we have done all of our homework on these issues. That we are current, interesting, perhaps a little provocative. And credible.
Visionary in goals; prudent, sensible and incremental in application.”
So, there you have it. The next inter electoral period will be a battle for the souls of approximately 14.6 percent of the electorate who the NDP suspects want to awaken their inner dipper and change the electoral landscape for a generation. No one can accuse the NDP of thinking small.
