How Jack can save the NDP (1)

The federal NDP is meeting in Halifax this week, and the party has big plans.

“With a Prime Minister who’s not sure how to handle this economic crisis, everyday Canadians are relying on New Democrats for leadership that will put them first,” says party leader Jack Layton on the NDP website.

Officials told John Ivison the session will focus on sculpting a new, more modern political machine, able to take on the Liberals and Tories:

“Party officials are keen to present today’s NDP as a professional and competent social democratic party, in the mould of Gary Doer’s three- time majority government in Manitoba.

Rather than adopt an unruly rag-tag of policies from the convention floor, the party has put together a policy document and asked the grassroots to send in their proposed resolutions for suggested improvements. “We’ve grown up,” is how one New Democrat put it. “It’s part of the ongoing modernization of the party.”

Well, good luck. It’s been 15 years since Tony Blair became leader of the Labour party and began dragging it out of the 19th century (just in time for the 21st) and 16 years since Bill Clinton overhauled the Democratic Party in the U.S., so you can’t accuse the NDP of rushing into anything. Barack Obama is in the midst of remaking the Democrats again, this time in his own image. Yet if they’d had YouTube at the founding of the NDP in 1961, you probably wouldn’t notice much change in the fuzzy rhetoric delivered then, and the stuff Mr. Layton offers now.

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Notes:

I don’t know if Americans are aware of this but I’m here to tell you that the closest thing that Canada has to the current batch of  US Democrats is our New Democratic Party.  At this point the NDP are wrestling with their name as they attempt to rebrand themselves and since Lorne has a few suggestions for them so do I.

They should make the change very simple so everyone understands what they are getting.

They should rename themselves the “Old Democratic Party“. 

Heh…