I generally agree with DougJ on the Continental Op vs Mr Smith divide in politics. I was talking to a Canadian friend the other day, and he remarked about the impact of Jack Layton’s death on Canadian politics. From my superficial reading about him, Layton seems like a Mr Smith on the outside and a Continental Op behind closed doors. I realize the political systems are different, Canada’s more liberal, etc., but the guy was effective as the NDP leader (and that’s not a job for the touchy-feely), yet he death also led to scenes like this and this. Maybe some Canadians would like to weigh in on Layton, but I don’t see a similar figure in American politics.
Jack Layton
by @heymistermix.com| 100 Comments
This post is in: Politics
Sam Houston
Paul Wellstone, and he was killed for it.
Observer
There are no lessions to be drawn from Jack Layton.
A very very well known politician, who was the leader of a party that totally suprisingly and tremendously exceeded expectations in the most recent federal election less than 5 months prior, died of cancer unexpectedly (to the public) leaving his wife who is also an elected politician and very popular in the largest city in the country.
How exactly did you think people were going to react other than how they did?
This is sui generis.
Rorke
In spite of the mass emoting over Layton’s passing, I’d point out that in terms of policy achievements, he always tilted towards easy populism and cheap political points over lasting change. A few years ago he made ATM fees his top priority as an example of the small bore obsessions that eclipsed major structural issues. He torpedoed extensions of mass transit in central Toronto because he was convinced that it would lead to gentrification but instead has just led to a massively overcrowded and crumbling system in the downtown core. He was instrumental in bringing down the Liberal government, which though tired old and corrupt, was trying to pass some good reforms like marijuana decriminalization and create a national daycare program at the time. Instead of a Liberal minority which he could pull to the left, Layton opted to try and take down the Liberals and replace them as the party of the Center-Left. Now we have a full Conservative majority and a mid-sized NDP opposition with no leader, no cohesive message (they ran on the schizophrenic platform of pro-autonomy in Quebec, nationalist populism for the West with tax cuts and expensive social and environmental programs for everyone). He was a good guy but as a politician he was so focused on increasing the size of his party he missed the forest for the trees and now PM Harper can continue to obliterate environmental protection and eviscerate social program funding. RIP but he wasn’t a saint.
John X.
It’s the corrupting influence of money in politics. A politician needs to plug into the donor streams and get insider support to win at any level high enough to make any real change, and the people in charge of the money make sure that they get what they paid for.
Americans know this. It’s hard to admire someone that you know, on an instinctual level, has already sold out.
YellowJournalism
It’s funny that Sam Houston brings up Wellstone because conservative pundits and radio hosts in Canada are starting to accuse the NDP here of using Layton’s funeral as (quoting exact term) an “infomercial” for the NDP. I would say that for a while now Sun media and radio hosts are begining to take cues from American Fox News and the Rush/Beck types, yet at present they’re one-tenth as vile and 1/100th the crazy. What scares me is that I think the rise of the NDP and the public reaction to losing Layton have them scared enough to come to a turning point where the assholeness is being ramped up. For example, I was listening to radio host Charles Addler on what used to be a straight all-news station. He was going off on how the NDP is using Layton’s death for political gain and how Layton and the NDP should have disclosed that Layton was dying during the campaign. People like Addler are presenting it as a “the public deserves to know if their possible prime minister will be around past election day”, but the jerk was using some pretty nasty terminology and practically mocking the public reaction to Layton’s death by calling him “Saint Jack.” At one point, the host goes, “I don’t know, is it wrong to be asking this only ten days after we learned that we lost Saint Jack?” I practically screamed to my radio “Yes, you asshole!”
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer: There are no lessons to be from considering why a particular politician was effective? I disagree. Obviously, all situations are different, but, if one bears that in mind, parallels can be drawn or inferences can be made that can have value. The same logic applies to using historical analogies, and I would recommend this book to anyone interested.
YellowJournalism
I should add that while I loved that the NDP became a stronger force in politics recently and could shape out to be a much-needed opposition to the conservatives to keep them in check, I was not always a fan of Layton. To me, he seemed like the Morgan Spurlock of politicians in that his message is one that I agreed with, but he kept trying to sell it to me on the campaign trail in symplified, cartoonish-but-entertaining ways. I preferred the Layton who showed up at the debates and in one-on-one interviews. He seemed more passionate, informative, and focused instead of a car salesman who wasn’t telling me all the costs of the cool features he was selling me.
I have not in seven years here connected to a political party in Canada. Part of it is that I can’t vote but another part is that the parties all have points I really like and really don’t like to them. Conservatives are too closely related to American Repubs in the social issues and corporate welfare areas, Liberals are at this point the extreme of every political flaw of American Dems, and the NDP is almost too liberal for me in that some of their environmental and social agendas come at a cost that seems unrealistic to implement without major impacts on the economy. I’m warming up to the NDP, though, and look forward to seeing what the fresh politicians bring to the system. I also do not support Harper trying to get rid of public funding for the smaller parties. I think that would take Canada into the stagnant two-party system that the US needs to break out of.
HT
For a long time, Jack Layton was seen as the only respectable party leader in Canadian politics. Stephen Harper (Conservative party) is a charisma-free, beady-eyed weasel, and the Liberal party has been trotting up a series of third-rate pretenders.
Unfortunately, he was running a “far-left” party that had been viewed as an also-ran for a generation or more. The main difference in this past election was that the NDP was able to generate significant gains in Quebec, where the other parties were busy failing (often spectacularly) since a local party achieved success on a federal level.
Many, many people respected Jack Layton as a principled, passionate political figure. A large portion of the people mourning his passing do not share his principles, but do respect them. Myself included.
superluminar
My view is that this is true of the vast majority of politicians in any democracy. All politicos I’ve met basically combine the traits of actually giving a shit about their constituencies with some(or a lot) measure of both personal ambition and cyncicism. I think DougJ’s original thought was no more than gimmicky and is really not helpful in understanding political processes in any meaninful sense, to be honest.
Oh, and RIP Jack Layton, would have been proud to have him as my rep.
YellowJournalism
HT, you did a better job of explaining how I feel.
ppcli
The “little guy fighter for the people” pose is pretty standard for NDP leaders, and it often makes the leaders very popular even when the party is languishing. Tommy Douglas, of course and Ed Broadbent are two other examples who come to mind. In Broadbent’s case, since he was a former political science professor, maintaining the “buddy at the beer parlour” image took some craft. (David Lewis had that “Fiery Union Leader on the Barricades” vibe – another NDP archetype.) Layton was, in addition to his personal qualities, also politically sharper than those other guys.
A small indication of Layton’s political instincts and commitment: during the 2006 election I was back at home and watched the French language leader’s debates. Layton’s French was really quite bad (not as bad as Broadbent, who was atrocious, but still). Even Harper had a better command of the language. In the most recent French debate, I couldn’t believe my ears: Layton was spectacularly fluent. Evidently he identified this weakness, sensed the opening in Québec and in the intervening five years invested a ton of work in bringing his language skills up to speed. Not easy for a fifty year old, especially if he is also running a party and undergoing chemotherapy. The debate performance, plus his appearances on French-language talk radio and TV (which Harper and Ignatieff avoided) were crucial in effecting what may turn out to be a permanent change in the political landscape.
Feed of the Nort
The NDP are complicated.
We like a lot of what they say, but they spew a lot of hooey.
Jack was very good at this. The thing he was best at though was controlling the outright nut jobs on the left (essentially pro to-communists, see Libby Davies).
He also was much like Obama during the last campaign -really good at the warm and fuzzier, with effective wit that did not come off as mean.
He was genuinely caring about people and a community organizer.
TJ
I’d take either Jimmy Stewart or the Op at this point. Neither would shoot themselves in the foot doing a Don Knotts impression.
Dennis SGMM
@ppcli:
That’s amazing. French isn’t exactly the easiest language to master. I’m sure that Layton will be missed very much.
Undeadpundit
You cannot compare Canadian to American politics. Not anymore. The US system has become all about class warfare and raising more money than your opponents.
20 somethings getting elected with almost zero financial backing like what happened last election would be impossible in the US.
Layton really came into his own politically towards the end of his like but he wasn’t that extraordinary. He just happened to be a reasonably polished populish party leader in a time when there was (is) a lack of polished populist leaders.
Sam Houston
Sounds like Canadian papers actually do reporting. Or am I ignoranto?
Leaks show U.S. swayed Canada on copyright bill
patrick II
Ronald Reagan was the republicans Mr. Smith — and he was a very effective one. President Reagans broad themes — government is the problem, lower taxes, freedom is absence of government, governmet is inefficient, government is costly and inhibits free market with unnecessarily complex regulations, unions are too powerful and need to be put in their place, all boats rise on the rising tide, and once we returned to the more natural order (fewer regulations, more freedom(for the rich) we would once again be the shining city on the hill.
He drove those themes home to the american people.
The problem with Obama just quietly giving up on the clean air regulations to “save jobs and costs” is that not only does he lose the policy, he also concedes the underlying argument — that the regulations will be harmful to the economy. Sure, the regulations will cost the power companies money to upgrade, but they will pay other companies or subcontractors to make the improvements to their plants, and those people will turn and buy equipment for work and food and education for their homes. The money won’t disappear. People’s health will be better, both short and long term. By not making the arguement that spending on productive things is actually good for the economy esepcially now during slow times, Obama is ceding to the austerity argument once again.
I don’t want a Mr. Smnith who goes to Washington and argues blue sky but be unable to matich it to realistic policy. However, we have seen a president argue for actaully harmful policies and make people think the would be approaching the city in the sky. I would like to see a democratic president who was at least arguing that there is a damn fine town right here on earth where there is clean air that will take some effort but it is good for people and good for the economy to actually do something about it — rather than seemingly be conviced that spending money for regulations (on clean air or anything else) harms the economy, and its ancillary arguement that the only way out of this mess is to lower taxes — it is just a question of which taxes we lower — another argument ceded to the republicans.
Obama is a brilliant man, smart enough to be our first elected black president, so I always worry that my criticisms are politically naive. There certainly are pragmatic reasons the policy and the principle must be ceded to the republicans without argument. They just don’t seem worth it to me.
Anya
I lived in Canada most of my life because my dad teaches at UofT and during that time I was immersed in Canadian politics and was active in a number of campaigns ( for a short period, I was even a member of the Young Liberals, till I discovered I was not actually a citizen), so I followed closely all the campaigns from the time I was 16 years old — except the last two elections, so I can tell you that Jack Layton was a pragmatic politician and not a dreamer. Just remember that he Forced a confidence vote that brought down the Paul Martin government in 2006 that brought Stephen Harper’s minority government. Do you know what he voted against, a national childcare policy, billions for affordable housing construction, including aboriginal housing, increase in transfers to provinces for tuition reduction and better training through EI, increased funding for the environment and more. Layton voted against it because he saw an opportunity for his party to increase the seats they held, besides, there was no guarantee that neither the conservatives or the Liberals were going to win a majority government, which meant that the NDP still held the balance of power. So, yeah, he was more pragmatic than idealist.
Having said that, I don’t think any other Canadian politician’s death would have generated the same reaction from the public. But I don’t think public grieve is a scale for anything. Don’t you think if something happened to President Obama, there would a similar reaction, if not more? Yes, the crazies would celebrate but I think the reaction would be massive.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@patrick II: That was really nicely stated.
Anya
@ppcli: As per his wikipedia page:
Why was his French bad if he was raised in Quebec?
Dave Ruddell
That’s not fair. He’s not really beady-eyed.
Villago Delenda Est
@patrick II:
Yup, agree with Raven. Very well said.
Our problem is that Americans are fixed, shark with laser beams on its head like, on the short term, not the long term.
Peter
@Sam Houston: You are correct. After spending days and weeks immersed in the failboat that is US media, it often blows me away when I turn on CBC radio and hear actual journalism.
Of course, any time they touch US politics, they’re getting all their information from US media, so it turns into a gigantic cringefest.
Mnemosyne
@patrick II:
Except that Reagan didn’t originate those themes — they had already begun to be a drumbeat throughout the Republican Party thanks in large part to Goldwater and his followers.
Most people outside of California have never heard of Howard Jarvis, but he was hugely influential on Reagan’s rhetoric. Jarvis got California’s anti-tax Prop 13 passed in 1978, two years before Reagan was elected president.
Who is out there on the local level passing progressive legislation that national politicians can seize on the way Jarvis and others were passing conservative legislation in the mid-1970s?
TJ
@Peter: Live in Buffalo, where you get Canadian TV. Can’t count the number of times I heard something there that the American media just blows off.
ppcli
@Anya: It’s not uncommon for Anglos of that generation raised in Québec not to speak French well. Two Solitudes, and all that. That has changed in these post-Bill 101 days.
Small illustration: the comedian Norm MacDonald (more than a decade younger than Layton) was brought up in Québec City – really in the heart of French country, unlike the anglo outpost of Hudson – (his folks were teachers at CFB Valcartier) and (IIRC) he admitted in an interview that he hardly speaks French at all.
Linnaeus
@Anya:
Hudson’s in the greater Montreal area, which has a significant Anglophone minority. Hudson in particular is a majority-Anglophone enclave.
patrick II
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t think it is necessary to my argument that Reagan was the originator of those themes — only that he argued them well and used them as a basis for policy discussions we are still having — and losing — today. We (not just Obama) need to start arguing more effectively against them.
Rorke
@Anya: In what way was preventing those policies evidence of a pragmatist over a dreamer. He was dreaming of an NDP majority so he scuttled valuable social programs that would have made a real difference in people’s lives. If he was a pragmatist he would have squeezed the Liberal minority for all they were worth while pulling together a workable national majority rather than betting everything on an eventual sweeping NDP victory that would bring Canadians to the promised land.
ppcli
@Anya:
@ppcli:
An addendum from Wikipedia:
If it was 65% in 2001, I’ll hazard it was closer to 90% or more during Layton’s youth.
Jager
Mrs J and I were eating lunch at an outdoor cafe in Montreal, two local couples at the table next to ours were carrying on a conversation in English and French at the same time. One would say something in French, another would respond in English. The common word used in both languages seems to be fuck.
My Canadian associates and friends all say they are going to miss Jack Layton.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Semi-related, I just came back from a No On SB 5 Parade / Rally a couple blocks from my house. Just the sheer amount of unions showing up carrying ‘Stop The War On Workers’ signs cheered my ever-bleedin’ heart. I have a feeling that unless Mitt Romney comes in wearing a ‘We Are One’ hat and Sister Souljas the hell out of John Kasich, the GOP is fucked in Ohio.
Beauzeaux
I’m a new Canadian. Emigrated from the US in 2004 and became a citizen in 2009. This last election (May2) was our first time to vote. I never considered voting anything but NDP.
I admired Jack Layton a lot. He loved politics and truly saw it as a way to change. He wasn’t cynical and he wasn’t mean.
His loss is a blow because Canada needs the NDP and there’s no one of his stature to take the leadership.
Anya
@ppcli: @patrick II: I was thinking since he’s a son of a politician, maybe he would have learned French, just like Paul Martin.
Leboomer
@Anya:
Actually Jack came late to Federal politics. He moved to Ontario for his university education and stayed there and was involved in the City of Toronto political scene for many many years. So was there was very little need to work on his french until the jump to federal politics.
Paul Martin’s (spit)path was a tad different.
idoidodeclare
@patrick II: Rubbish!
karl
@Mnemosyne:
“Jarvis got California’s anti-tax Prop 13 passed in 1978, two years before Reagan was elected president.”
Yeah, and four years after Reagan served two terms as California’s governor. And who gave Goldwater’s nominating speech at the 1964 convention (to great acclaim), anyway? Please get a timeline.
On the other hand, it would be hard to find a better Mr. Smith-ish invocation of American liberal principles and policies than a 1948 radio spot supporting Harry Truman’s re-election given by the then-progressive Ronald Reagan.
Jane2
I don’t agree that Layton’s death has had much of an effect on Canadian politics…his body wasn’t even cold and the jockeying for leader began, including one of the backroom guys who helped Jack write his final (and very moving) letter. Evil Steve will continue being evil, and the Liberals will continue to not quite get it, and the NDP will try to balance between its internal leadership issues and its external obligation as the Official Opposition.
The country just isn’t as polarized…for example, Harper may indeed be evil (if not beady-eyed), but the depth of dislike/hatred doesn’t come close to that for Obama or Boehner or any prominent American politician.
ppcli
@Jager: You’ve described almost every conversation in my high school. Except that “Tabarnak” got as much use as “fuck” in both languages. Good times.
@Anya: Not really comparable. Martin’s dad was Francophone (and his neighborhood in Windsor probably had far more Francophones than Hudson did during Layton’s youth; even today Windsor has a huge Francophone population). It wasn’t really until the late 1970s (post-PQ election) that functional French came to be seen as necessary for a successful Canadian politician. Robert Stanfield hardly spoke French at all, and I’m pretty sure David Lewis didn’t either.)
idoidodeclare
@patrick II: Rubbish! Sorry but I could not disagree more with your Reagan nonsense. Reagan was simply not a horrible prez like just about every other Rethug prez before and since.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Anya:
And don’t forget the last election, where (it seemed to this Yank) a divided left allowed Harper to get a majority. I’ll be honest, and I may very well be wrong, but i’m just not a fan of left wing parties dividing the vote and allowing conservative parties to win.
The Tragically Flip
I usually vote Liberal, but I’ve always appreciated the role of the NDP as Canada’s concience that keep the Liberals from becoming the Democrats and the Conservatives from being the Republicans (Quebec also helps keep both of the traditional big 2 parties a bit to the left of their US equivalents). If the next election shapes up to be NDP versus Conservative, I will happily vote NDP. If the NDP has faltered in opposition then I’ll expect the Liberals to re-emerge.
Now that they have replaced the Liberals as the left-alternative to the Conservatives (at least for the time being, if they can make it stick) my question is, what prevents them from becomming the Liberal in all but name?
That seems to be about what happened in the provinces where the NDP is one of the big-2 parties (BC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba).
After all, the consultants and pollsters will be telling them to move to the centre and capture all those soft Liberal voters who don’t like Harper and are nervous about the NDP being too far to the left. The Liberals had the force of the NDP pulling them left, what keeps the NDP to the left?
Roxsie
http://mrbeernhockey.blogspot.com/2011/08/appeal-of-jack-layton.html
Interesting perspective
trollhattan
O/T I just heard Ron Paul lecture Scott Simon (NPR) on the moral hazards of somebody in Virginia helping pay for disaster victims in Vermont. That they have a “moral responsibility” to self-insure against disaster and that’s what he does.
He focused a lot on beach houses and kinda skipped those non-beach limited tornadoes. Texas never has those, of course.
It’s ironic someone with a likable personality should have such a morally venomous compass (his son has no such limitation). And much like John McCain’s uncoubtable houses, it’s clear Paul has never read his insurance policies and the many, many limitations they place on natural occurances, not to mention nuclear war and disasters.
Asshole.
Joey Maloney
You’d be surprised how many languages that word is common to. I live in a city where I routinely hear English, French, Russian, Tagalog, Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish, and German spoken on the street and “fuck” seems to figure prominently in all of them.
Villago Delenda Est
@trollhattan:
Ron Paul is, quite frankly, an utter asshole, and a myopic one as well.
eemom
@trollhattan:
I was kinda saving this as tokoloko-bait, but here is an excellent piece by an actual professed “libertarian” on why Ron Paul sucks donkey dicks:
http://www.tnr.com/article/94477/ron-paul-distorted-libertarian-ideology
eemom
@Joey Maloney:
also too, the foreign iterations of fuck and fucking are often such fun words to say. My personal favorite is the Yiddish “schtupping”.
In Greek, the word for fuck you is “gammissou.” I saw it on a license plate once right here in Virginny.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: She wouldn’t read it.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@eemom: Ever see the Wire episode where the only word they said on the investigation of a murder site was was fuck?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sNZ7ulO1RQ
Amir Khalid
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
Or the opening few minutes of Four Weddings And A Funeral?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
OK, time for FOOTBALL!
Villago Delenda Est
@eemom:
I love this last sentence in that linked article (well worth reading in its entirety):
It’s all about taking up the ladder once you’re on the boat. Fuck the drowning.
Joel
When Obama dies, hopefully sometime around 2050 or so, there will be a much larger public display of remembrance, if there’s still a United States to celebrate him.
Munira
@Anya: I’m originally from the States, but I’ve lived in Quebec for 20 years and I know quite a few anglophones who either don’t speak French or don’t speak it well. I’ve actually had to translate at times for people who were born and raised in Quebec. It is changing with the younger generation though. English speaking children are coming out of school completely bilingual. The problem is that many francophone children aren’t since English isn’t always taught well in French schools.
Sam Houston
Help with parliamentary systems please…
Does the UK have “floating” MPs? Canada? Floating – as in politicians whom are elected without a geographical base?
Wiki was a bit dense to find the answer I wanted.
trollhattan
@eemom:
Thanks! I liked
Anya
@ppcli: I am only familiar with a period in Canadian politics where French is a huge asset for national politicians.
East Coaster
Jack Layton had much to admire and his campaign was very well done, and in some ways inspiring. But an understanding of what happened also has to take into account the spectacular collapse of the Liberal party across Canada and of the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec. The Liberal collapse comes from having an amazingly smug and incompetent leader who had no idea how to campaign, from a sense that they – and certainly most Canadians – had no idea what they stood for anymore, and from the effect of a scandal that saw money go to organisations who did a lot of no-show non-work – mostly in Quebec – that were run by Liberal supporters. The Bloc collapse went hand-in-hand with the splintering of its provincial counterpart, the Parti Quebecois, who also managed to choose an incompetent for their leader. It is to Layton’s credit that he was able to run a campaign that took advantage of the Liberal and Bloc problems.
There is a movement afoot, how serious I don’t know, to have the Liberals and NDP somehow join up. This is not completely impossible as the Canadian Auto Workers union seems to have come out in favour of this. The joining of a rather centrist party with a more extreme party is not unknown in Canada as the current governing party, the Conservatives, came from a merger of the rather right-wing Reform Party with the much more centrist Progressive Conservative party (a party with a lot of Red Tories – some of whom left the new party to join the Liberals); some regard it more as the takeover of the floundering PCs rather the merger it is advertised as. I do find it interesting that there are many parallels between the Reform (a party then on the rise) – PC (a party then on the decline) relationship and the NDP (a party now on the rise) – Liberal (a party now on the decline) relationship.
El Cid
That evil, treasonous Dennis Kucinich and his coddling of Qaddafi!
I hope Bouckaert was giggling when he said that part about the “stain on the record of the American intelligence services.”
__
I know that any sane people, particularly including the rest of the world, suffer few illusions about a fantasized non-stained record of American intelligence services.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
yeah, but I could endlessly taunt her with the existence of an intelligent, principled libertarian; watch her chase it all over the blog like a doggie I used to know would do with a flashlight beam.
Anya
@patrick II: Funny thing about President Obama’s detractors — they refuse to see when he’s playing the long game. This was the case with the repeal of DADT. He wanted get the buy-in from the military, first so that the military brass would be the face of DADT opposition. Of course that strategy needed time and patience but at the end, it achieved its goal and it will minimize any backlash within the army.
To me his 2001 interview with Chicago public radio station WBEZ best illustrates Obama’s commitment to the long game when it comes to social change.
Transcript from Media Matters
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
How is this a suspicion? It seems to be the only rational conclusion to come to about libertarianism. And libertarianism certainly is not limited to white males, though it may indeed attract the socially obtuse.
BTW, thanks very much for the great posts on Jack Layton and Canadian politics. Talk about yer food for thought.
Observerinvancouver
@Rorke: No politician is a plaster saint and you’ve made some very good points. (I’ve always been a federal Liberal who has appreciated the contributions the NDP have made to Canada.)
However, I still well-up with tears each time I think of his death. This is the last paragraph in his letter to the Canadian people written a couple of days before he died:
“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: That could be interesting. In a purely scientificky experiment sort of way, of course.
Observer
@Omnes Omnibus: He wasn’t effective. He was the leader of the official opposition who just died of cancer while in office. Only a-holes would say anything personally disparaging about him and he rightly earned the good will that comes from doing very good and much much better than expected. Jack was a good egg, as they say.
But the NDP, his party, will never ever be elected to run the government in Canada, everyone knows this and they are treated accordingly. Almost by definition there’s no way to be effective when everybody knows you’ll never win. There are very few lessons once can draw from the leader of a party that everybody (and I mean *everybody*) knows will never be in power, ever. You just can’t.
Unless of course your aim isn’t to actually be in power. Then that’s a different thing entirely.
I report, you decide.
Comrade Mary
@Observer: But before he died, he broke the Bloc in Quebec. His politics fit in with the general leftist bent in Quebec and he offered a highly charismatic and pragmatic alternative. Along the way, he managed to get a bunch of kids elected as NDP MPs even though they were incredibly raw, and in, at least one case, had lousy French and was away on a vacation instead of campaigning.
(Catch-up for Americans: the Bloc Quebecois is a separatist federal party — yes, kind of like a party of Rick Perrys, plus poutine — that has won the majority of seats in Quebec for several years, locking out the traditional Liberal majority, leading to Conservative victories in the past few elections).
From all accounts, ordinary people and media in Quebec reacted even more fervently than English Canada to his death.
James E. Powell
These are all very nice sentiments, but they are no more than that. I don’t see any of those things changing the world. What do any of those things accomplish against the brute force of the Bush/Cheney administration? Or the callous disregard of the American ruling class? Where are hope, optimism, and love in the tough economic times when the people in the working class almost invariably turn on each other?
Those are nice things to say if one wants to be well thought of by strangers. But they are useless when one wants to acquire or wield authority. No one can change the world without making some one else suffer.
Anya
@Rorke: He saw an opportunity for his party to make gains and he sacrificed the social programs for his dream. If he was an idealist he would have focused on the social programs, no?
Observerinvancouver
@Sam Houston: Canada does not have “floating” politicians at the federal or provincial level (except for the Senate (federal), where they’re all appointed on a provincial basis [don’t ask]). In Vancouver, our municipal politicians are elected on an at-large basis, which perniciously favours the rich sections of town over the poor sections.
patrick II
@Anya:
I agree that Obama is attempting to play the long game. I said as an aside in my comment that Obama cannot do this alone.
However, Reagan also played the long game, and he did it in part by restating his themes over and over until they have become part of what many people think of as “common sense” — government regulations inhibit the wealth we would create by unfettered free enterprise, unions are lawless socialists, working for the common man or common good is socialism, “trickle down” economics (although they don’t call it that anymore) will raise all boats.
Reagan has the huge, perhaps unassailable, advantage of commercial communications corporations echoing his themes over time. But the eloquent son of a bitch put them out there in a way that has reverberated in the first place. I don’t get that from Obama.
I like Obama immensely. I find him to be astonishingly competent, and doing a lot of good under the radar. However, I was able to name a bunch of themes for Reagan that have become a political mental framework for many voters. Can you do the same for Obama? Working for the long term is great unless he is doing it so subtlety that the community he wants to build can’t pick up his arguments and build the same sort of national ideal that Reagan built for republicans.
ronobot
To address mistermix’s (sorta) question, I don’t think there is a similar figure in American politics. Regardless of what Layton may or may not have accomplished at the Federal level, he was a gay positive, bike-riding tree-hugger who managed to become Leader of the Opposition (albeit in majority Conservative government), and he did so without having to deny any of his progressive tendencies.
(Among other things, Layton helped legitimize Pride Day in Toronto as a city counsellor and had a home that was powered via solar and geothermal technologies.)
I don’t think the guy was a saint, but I did vote consistently for him, and felt the loss of his passing.
Jager
The younger brother of a Canadian friend of mine ran a rock radio station in Montreal. He decided to hire bilingual jocks, even though the station was licensed as “English”. The idea was to have people on the air who sounded like the listeners. The station was a tremendous success. When I heard it in the late 70’s you’d hear the air talent introducing Blondie’s Heart of Glass in two languages, sounding just like the chatter you heard in stores, bars, restaurants and on the street. Within a year the CTRC (their FCC) made them switch back to English only. My pal’s brother is convinced the French stations lobbied the hell out of the CTRC.
patrick II
@idoidodeclare:
I agree Reagan was a horrible president. He was harmful in ways that I don’t think I have totally put together. But he was effective at communicating the right wing themes, Cleaning them up and putting a bow on them. Right wingers are racists they are “self-reliant”. The right wing is for freedom. Government is the enemy of freedom. etc.
Make no mistake. I hate the guy. But we are still living in his world. If you don’t believe me try saying the minimum wage should be increased to $10 (roughly the inflated dollar equivalent of the $1.35 I got when I graduated from hs in ’67) without being called a socialist.
Interrobang
Say what you want about Layton, I’m never going to forgive him for his role in bringing down Martin’s government and letting that smirking corpse Harper into power. That right there pretty much cancelled every good thing he might have done, not to mention all the stuff other people have mentioned upthread about his scuttling important stuff in order to try to get power.
As Observer said, the NDP had no chance of ever becoming the majority, particularly not after Bob Rae in Ontario (most populous province) and the problems that plagued the NDP in BC (third most populous province); the numbers just weren’t going to be there, even with Quebec going heavily orange. (That said, I am truly peeved at my fellow Ontarians who stayed home in droves and let the Blue Meanies take over…)
As Rorke said, he should have focused on trying to pull the Liberals to the left, or (praise be!) a coalition government, but noooooo, he had to screw all of us because he thought he had an outside shot at the Prime Ministership.
Fuck you, Jack Layton, I’d rather have a semi-corrupt tottering Liberal government than what we have now. *That* damage is *never* gonna be undone.
Mia malkan
http://thedailypingpong.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/good-bye-jack/</a
My 20+ year old son & I have been very much inspired by Jack Layton (since we moved to Canada ten (10) years ago), like no other Canadian politician. As soon as we became citizens we were so motivated to vote for his NDP. His booming voice, his artful debates and his compelling causes were all great inspirations. He will be deeply missed!!
Comrade Mary
@Jager: Hey, was this CHOM? I vaguely remember them sounding like that.
Jager
@Comrade Mary: CKGM
Comrade Mary
REALLY!? Wow. It was totally English in the early 70s, when I lived in Montreal. (Man, I still remember great chunks of the morning show with Ralph Lockwood.) This tribute page is pretty good. It’s all sports now :-(
Wiki expands on your story:
Yeah, I left in December 74. Just missed all that.
Mnemosyne
@patrick II:
Sorry, had to wander out for a bit while the cleaning people did their thing in the apartment.
I think it’s absolutely necessary to point out that Reagan was not the originator of those themes — he was building on themes that had been brewing in the Republican Party for years and had already gained a lot of currency in the electorate.
Reagan brought those themes to a wider audience, but they had been gaining strength for years before his election. To someone who hadn’t been following politics, they would have seemed brand-new and different, but they already had a lot of followers who had put legislation in place.
No, we don’t need better arguments — we need better legislation to work against them. Rhetoric alone didn’t work for the Republicans — they had laws like Prop 13 in place that they could point to as a “success” that should be built on at the national level.
To claim that Reagan came up with all of this and all we need to do is talk better is an extremely shallow view of what actually happened. Rick Perlstein covers a lot of this in his excellent book Before the Storm: Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus.
(Edited to fix typos)
Southern Beale
We’ve been in Canada the past two weeks, the mourning and outpouring of support for Layton surprised me, but then again I don’t know Canadian politics. But he died of natural causes — cancer — and he was the head of the opposition party. I tried to imagine it as being analogous to John Boehner dying of cancer or Nancy Pelosi when Bush was president? It was like the whole country was in mourning, all of the flags were at half-staff, and I think all the government offices were closed the day before his funeral. Front page news every day, stories about how he met his wife, etc.
Jager
@Comrade Mary: I heard the station one time when visiting Montreal. We had dinner with my friend’s bro and his French wife. He was originally from western Canada and thought the station just reflected the market and apparently from its ratings it did! He lives in San Diego now and has a house in the Okanogan. I only knew bits and pieces of the story, thanks for looking it up!
patrick II
@Mnemosyne:
Sorry, this time I wandered away — for a walk on the beach.
Anyhow, you are right that the origins of those arguments are important, all I was saying was that Reagan was an effective propagandist. I don’t think your argument contradicts that.
And you are right, we need better legislation — and also policy. But, backing away from E.P.A. standards Obama had previously promised to enforce, authorized by legislation already passed, is not the way towards either better legislation or better policy.
Mnemosyne
@patrick II:
Reagan was only an effective propagandist because he had an entire movement behind him parroting and amplifying the same points he was making. Democrats can’t even figure out what we’re supposed to be propagandizing in favor of, which makes it a lot harder to get that same support behind the current president when he does have a good policy (like blocking the AT&T/T-Mobile merger).
Chris
@El Cid:
“Great! Iran-contra, Noriega, now this. Tell me something; is there ANYBODY you guys HAVEN’T financed?”
“The Democrats?”
– MacGyver, Season 7
patrick II
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t agree that liberals don’t know what we are supposed to be propagandizing in favor of. Justice for the powerless, equality of opportunity, money is not the measure of all things, the economy must be managed and regulated and not left to some mythical, ruthless natural order, the government is more efficient than an unregulated market in some economic roles such as social security and public health care, there is no invisible hand assuring our individual actions will make larger problems like global climate change go away.
You are right that we don’t have the giant megaphone, but at the core we have a pretty good idea of what we should be doing, and it would be helpful if we had a president as good at propagandizing a different world view as Reagan was at propagandizing his.
Splitting Image
The closest parallel to Layton in the U.S. might have been Ted Kennedy, another flawed individual whose ambitions led him to do some questionable things, but whose fingerprints are on a lot of the progressive legislation the country has been able to push through over the last couple of decades. His loss was also keenly felt across the country when he died.
Very different backgrounds and career paths, but similar in quite a few respects.
@Sam Houston:
There have been a few pushes to convert the “first-past-the-post” system into some form of proportional representation, but as it is every MP in the House of Commons represents a specific geographical riding (=district).
Beauzeaux
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
My absolute favourite episode with two of my all-time favourite actors.
Malcolm+
Any, Roarke and others repeat the tired Liberal talking point that the Liberal government – having done exactly nothing on childcare, the environment or Aboriginal issues for the entire 13 years they had been in power – were about to embark on a virtual renaissance of activist government if only that nasty Jack Layton hadn’t defeated them.
In other words, they are lying.
* The Liberals had already been in power 13 years. Not only had they not advanced social programs at all, they had actually gutted federal funding of our cornerstone universal health care system, downloading onto the provinces.
* Having been reduced to a minority in 2004, the Liberals made no effort to reach out to Layton on their left, preferring to introduce a budget larded with generous corporate giveways an tax cuts in order to win the support of the right wing Conservatives. IT was only when the Conservatives (smelling blood due to another Liberal corruption scandal) declined to play along that the Martin government made any concessions to the New Democrats.
* Having barely survived the 2005 confidence motion (literally by a single tie breaking vote from the Speaker), Martin refused to even discuss the 2006 fiscal and legislative agenda with Layton and the NDP. Having already committed to calling an election in April 2006 (long before any of their pretendy policies would have been implemented), defeating the government in December 2005 made essentially no difference to polcy outcomes.
* The composition of the House having changed significantly between the two confidence motions, with several Liberals having left the party, the lone independent who had given the government a tie previously having died, etc., there was simply no way for Martin to have survived the confidence motion, even with NDP support. EVEN IF EERY SINGLE NEW DEMOCRAT MP HAD TURNED UP AND VOTED CONFIDENCE, THE GOVERNMENT STILL WOULD HAVE FALLEN.
Roarke, Anya et al are the surest example of why no sane progressive could ever support the liars and fraud artists of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Rorke
@Malcolm+:
Malcolm: I am not going to defend everything the Liberal Party has done – especially not since Paul Martin left. I think Ignatieff and his wing of the party are atrocious. In the 1990s the Liberals were trying to fix the massive deficits left by the Tories that put Canada on the brink of an IFM bailout. The plans to turn back to expanding social programs under Martin showed that the NDP could effectively push them towards more progressive options. A corrupt Liberal govt under the influence of the NDP is still preferable to 5 years of unchecked Tory devastation.
Observerinvancouver: This is true – I’m attacking a straw man. But I’m trying to deflate the mythology rather than hold Layton to a higher standard. Unlike Ignatieff, at least he didn’t support torture and the war in Iraq. But he made a lot of decisions to sell out his cause in the long term in the name of short-term partisan gain.
Anya: The definition of pragmatism is not selling out your cause in the name of partisan gain. That is the definition of partisanship over principle. Pragmatism would be working with the Liberals in a coalition to advance policy that would help people rather than just increase the number of NDP seats at the expense of any actual accomplishment.
Carrie
I voted NDP in the last federal elections but to be quite honest, it wasn’t because i was a huge fan of Layton but the Liberals in my riding were, complacent. Since we are just a stones throw away from Ottawa (or maybe on spite of it?) we have been electing Liberals to Parliament since (I believe, but could be off by a few years…) 1892, and I have always considered myself a Liberal but i just couldn’t vote for Iggy, his stance for the Iraq war (among other things) just wasn’t working for me.
Like I said, I wasn’t a huge fan of Layton…I thought he was an opportunist, especially after Obama got elected, I felt that the guy was mimicking Obama’s mannerisms and even adopted his slogan. To me, he seemed like a faker who would do anything to get elected, I felt that he couldn’t accomplish what he eventually did. The leadership of the official opposition. Wow.
For that I am very grateful and have been a proud NDP supporter ever since. Doesn’t say much for me, eh? But what he accomplished in Quebec (where I live) through his determination and will while he was quietly facing a new cancer? All I can say is thanks, Jack.
Mr. MD
I would highly recommend this piece on Layton. I would highly recommend visiting this site on a daily basis. You may not agree with their ideas for solutions but their analysis is usually outstanding.
http://bit.ly/poc4Hd
Malcolm+
Rorke, enough with the official Liberal talking points. The LPC spent the last 75 years pretending to be progressive during election campaigns and when inopposition. I prefer to juge the Liberal Party on their reord rather than their rhetoric.
Your party is a right wing party and always has been. The Chretien Martin ministry was the most rigt wing Canadian government in generations. Please stop pretending your Orwellian talking points have anything to do with reality.
Thankfully the people of Canaa have cottoned onto the Liberal Party’s intellectual and moral bankrupcy and have consigned them to the dustbin of electoral politics.
Malcolm+
Interorgar, Rorke and Anya are so deeply immersed in the myths peddled by the Liberal spinroom tat their analysis is completely useless.
Martin was going to dissolve Parliament himself before any of these pretty programs you’ve deluded yourselves into believing would have even been passed. The stench of the Sponsorship Scandal meant he’d have lost the election in any event – and even if he had won, there is no logical reason to believe he would have followed through in his pretty progressive rhetoric.
And EVEN IF EVERY SINGLE NEW DEMOCRAT HAD VOTED WITH MARTIN ON THE FINAL CONFIDENCE MOTION, THE GOVERNENT WOULD STILL HAVE FALLEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, if you could all stop lying please.
Malcolm+
Interorgar, Rorke and Anya are so deeply immersed in the myths peddled by the Liberal spinroom tat their analysis is completely useless.
Martin was going to dissolve Parliament himself before any of these pretty programs you’ve deluded yourselves into believing would have even been passed. The stench of the Sponsorship Scandal meant he’d have lost the election in any event – and even if he had won, there is no logical reason to believe he would have followed through in his pretty progressive rhetoric.
And EVEN IF EVERY SINGLE NEW DEMOCRAT HAD VOTED WITH MARTIN ON THE FINAL CONFIDENCE MOTION, THE GOVERNENT WOULD STILL HAVE FALLEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, if you could all stop lying please.
Malcolm+
ppcli, David Lewis spoke pasable, though heavily accented French. He spent much of his childhood in a mixed linguistic community part of Montreal. He was the first CCF-NDP leader who spoke any FRench at all, and until Layton, the only one who spoke passable French prior to becoming leader.
Layton’s French was not technically strong, and it had certainly suffered from lack of use in his Toronto years. But he did speak French – and his use of the language was more colloquial than any other non-francophone politician. Indeed, by the 08 election, some commentators claimed his French was less technically correct but more accessible than Dion’s.
Lesley
@Rorke: The Liberal Party shot itself in the head when it decided Michael Ignatieff should be its leader. A guy who not only supported the war in Iraq but backed Bush from 2001 to just near the end of Bush’s presidential career. That did not sit well with many liberal voters including me.
Most Canadians didn’t know Ignatieff and even if they had been willing to give a virtual outsider the benefit of the doubt, his allegiance to the Bush administration combined with the fact that he had paid no political dues in Canada doomed him from the start.
Nobody warmed to the guy and Harper, evil GOP moffo that he is, capitalized on that and demonized Iggy. (Totally hypocrtical of course, since Harper is fully Americanized himself and doesn’t really give a shit about Canada’s sovereignty).
Ignatieff was also highly keen on perpetuating the war in Afghanistan.
I was disgusted by this choice of the LPC but that was really just the tip of the iceberg. For at least fifteen years, the LPC has shifted further to the right. Under their watch, social housing funding disappeared, they weakened EI eligibility making it impossible for many workers to collect, they dismantled federal employment programs, handing them off to the provinces who can’t all be counted on to provide them, and they turned a blind eye to private health clinics opening up in neoconservative BC. When Harper assumed control in 2006 he merely carried on what they’d started. The dismantling of Canadian social welfare policy.
In a telephone town hall with my Liberal MP during the last election campaign, I flat out asked her if the LPC would protect public health care and she said she couldn’t commit to a yes on that. That was the nail in the coffin for me.
Jack Layton’s success in the last election was due to a combination of things, but the LPC’s failure is largely its own responsibility. They have a lot of soul searching to do.
Lesley
@Malcolm+: Your comment is bang on.
What is truly ironic is the fact that Harper wouldn’t have had a hope in hell of being elected in 2006 without adscam. Canadians would have given the LPC another majority easily if the party hadn’t been crooked.
Harper of course is just as crooked. No, he’s worse, much more corrupt. But adscam opened the door for him and the LPC is to blame for that.
Rorke
@Lesley: Yep. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said. Ignatieff as leader was a total disgrace – nothing says Canadian values like a illegal war and torture advocate who has never given a shit about this country until a group of Toronto lawyers decided to hand him the keys to the kingdom. I completely agree that their collapse was self inflicted.
Malcolm: If the NDP had supported the budget with some help from the Bloc it could have passed. In any case, we are now stuck with Harper until 2016. I doubt the NDP coalition Layton has pulled together can last until then and actually gain even a minority which will have meant a decade of Tory rule to probably return to the centrist status quo.
Michael D.
Not only did these scenes you linked to happen; they were attended by Liberals, New Democrats, AND Conservatives.