It was all done in a search for insight. It seems there are oodles and oodles of self-professed New Democrats across Canada who feel they must produce a blog. Usually they appear to do it badly. Our quest was for some insight into their party’s national convention coming up this month. It was assumed that NDP blogs would offer some added insight into the leadership candidates and their possibilities.
No such luck.
In the main, we found NDP blogs to be sporadic, crude, boring, self-centred and fulsome diatribes against the other political parties. The one of the most interest had all the qualities mentioned but also offered trendy graphics to emphasize a diatribe against ever uniting with the Liberal Party. This person should be advised that if he feels so strong about it, the Liberal Party might not want him.
But none of the samples (more than 40 blogs) seemed to have any insights into their own party. You would expect these people would want to write about something they know about. Why would NDP bloggers not know about Topp, Mulcair, Nash, Dewar, et al? Do they not care who will run their political party next month? Do their want to keep Interim Leader Nicole Turmel at the helm?
Mme. Turmel is a nice lady but the NDP really needs a leader with somewhere to take the party. Mind you, when you see the list of people behind Brian Topp, it would seem unlikely that Mr. Topp has any direction that is not totally predictable. Mr. Topp is no Tommy Douglas. Nor could he even hold a sign for David Lewis.
It would probably be more fun to choose MP Thomas Mulcair. There is no telling just where Mr. Mulcair wants to go. It is most likely that the NDP needs M. Mulcair in the House of Commons where he can offer some leadership to the NDP’s fledgling Quebec caucus, Having Mulcair lead the entire NDP might be a bit of a stretch.
It would also be a mistake to put the party behind MP Paul Dewar. His weaknesses in French are those many Anglophones suffer from in Quebec. While the Quebec NDP caucus might be forgiving, he would be savaged by much of the Quebec media.
But we are not trying to tell the NDP who to choose. Someone a liberal likes might not be their best bet. We can certainly hope though that the NDP chooses someone who has the good sense to know that an ultimate merger of the political left in Canada would be in the best interest of all Canadians.
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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