The NDP Drops Out of Contention

Tom Mulcair strikes the classic politician's pose: looking up and away, as if into the future.

It looks as if Tom Mulcair and the NDP have fallen off the knife edge. Previously in a three-way statistical tie for the current Canadian federal brass ring, each new poll now seems to show them a little bit further behind.

What went wrong?

In retrospect, I think their campaign strategy was flawed. It wasn’t the niqab issue—that should have been as big a problem for the Liberals. It wasn’t opposition to TPP—that was a Hail Mary after the numbers started falling. It wasn’t any blunder by the leader. Their problem was more fundamental: it was in trying to move to the centre to pick up moderate votes. If it is only hitting them this late in the campaign, it is because undecided voters only start to make up their minds this late in the campaign.

Political operatives always want to move to the centre as the vote nears. It is cynical, but it is the conventional wisdom. You win by managing to cover a larger area of the ideological spectrum than your opponent. You win by having the more popular stand on a larger number of issues.

This idea, besides being cynical, is probably wrong. Political operatives care very much about political ideology and about issues. They naturally assume, therefore, that everyone else does. But anyone who does care is probably generally interested in politics, pretty much by definition, and so probably already committed to one party or the other. If you are uncommitted until the last weeks, it follows that you are not a policy wonk. You are uncommitted because you are not big on politics, and are not that interested in the issues.

What are they looking for?

In Canada, specifically, they tend to look for two things. Most times, Canadians don’t like drama. They are just looking for someone who will be competent and honest and will mostly leave them alone. As Bill Davis used to say, with Canadians, “bland works.” They like a Robert Bourassa, or a Mackenzie King, an un-flashy, managerial type. A Stephen Harper.

Every now and then, though, with these long winters and such, things get boring, and Canadians hanker for a little entertainment. Then they want something that looks like vision, like change, but not too scary. They go for a Diefenbaker, a Pierre Trudeau, even a Levesque.

The NDP’s problem is, in the natural run of things, you cannot defeat a managerial type with a managerial type. If Canadians are in the mood for bland, the bland option is always to vote continuity. So, if Stephen Harper is to be defeated, he must either defeat himself by showing great incompetence of corruption, or his opponent must offer some excitement, and people have to be sufficiently bored to grasp for it.

In seeking to look safe, the NDP have inadvertently stripped themselves of any excitement. Trudeau’s Liberals, though, had some inkling this was not the way to go. There is an old saying in the Liberal Party: they always lose if they run to the right of the Conservatives. After all, if you want conservative, you naturally think CPC, not Liberal. Let alone NDP. So the Grits have put some “real change” into their platform: legal marijuana, electoral reform, deficit spending. Nothing too scary, but enough to look cool and a little naughty.

The NDP, seeing their polling begin to slide, doubled down on their initial error by coming out against the TPP. A worse move they could not have made. They figured they were losing by straying from their “base,” so they tacked back suddenly to the left. Instead, they cast off their chance to look managerial, but did it by promising no change. Making them even more boring than the Conservatives. Worse, the original move to the centre made them look dishonest and opportunistic, and the deoubling back made them look doubly insincere and opportunistic.

The Conservatives ought to be in trouble, but are still in contention. Theoretically, the NDP’s fall establishes the Liberals as the clear alternative. If you assume it’s about ideology, instead of 33-33-33, Conservatives- Liberals-NDP, we now risk moving towards 33-66, Conservatives-Liberals. NDP votes are supposed to go Liberal, not jump across the ideological sky to the Conservatives.

So far, that is not happening. The Liberals seem to be going up, and the Conservatives seem to be going up. If there is now only one left-wing party to choose from, there is also, by the same token, now only one managerial party to choose from. These two may cancel out.

In general, the managerial approach is the preferred one in Canada. The vision thing is the harder sell. There is a reason why Canadian governments tend to stay longer in power than anywhere else in the Commonwealth, or perhaps in the democratic world.

So I suspect the odds still favour Harper. The TPP may be the perfect touch, a little change, but change that enhances rather than tarnishes the image of good managerial government.

By the same token, win or lose, the Liberals would be foolish to ditch Trudeau as leader. Each succeeding election, the craving for change will grow, and he has the proper image. "Not ready yet," that's all. If that.