Next weekend, the 11-month federal political phony war ends as the official opposition New Democratic Party finally elects a permanent leader to replace the late Jack Layton.
For prime minister Stephen Harper, the 11 months since his first majority win has been a stretch of largely unfettered power, used to limit debate in Parliament and push through Conservative pet project bills like the end of the CWB monopoly and the long gun registry as well as tough-on-crime bills.
Across the aisle of the House of Commons, he has faced two leaders with little legitimacy — interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel and interim Liberal leader Bob Rae, both of whom have been facing at least a theoretical best-before date.
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On March 24, New Democrats end their long leaderless spell by choosing between seven contenders. More on that later.
But first, there is the curious case of the Conservative attack ad launched March 19 against Rae. At first blush, the Conservative decision to spend money demeaning Rae’s leadership abilities seems odd.
He is, after all, the interim leader of Canada’s third party, reduced in last year’s election to a rump with its worst performance in history.
True, he has performed well in recent months. The opposition NDP has had a leadership vacuum that gave him room to shine, the Liberals now are running second in the polls and most political analysts really do not believe Rae’s assertion that he will not run for the permanent job when it becomes available within two years.
But really, why waste Conservative party money attacking a third party leader for his record as an NDP Ontario premier more than two decades ago? The next federal election is more than three years away.
There are several possibilities.
The Conservative brain trust may see the 2011 NDP breakthrough into second place as an aberration and the Liberals as the real long-term opponent.
Conservative strategic thinkers may believe that the party would do better in a two-party state where a centre-right party would defeat a centre-left party most elections and the Liberals are right now the weakest link among their opponents.
Or it may simply be timing, the last time to disparage Rae before the government’s real opponent — the new leader of the New Democratic Party opposition — is in place.
Mercifully, the NDP leadership race ends with a convention in Toronto this weekend. It has been a long and largely uninspiring race pitting former (and presumed front-runner) Quebec Liberal cabinet minister Thomas Mulcair against a field of six other earnest opponents who have yet to capture the public imagination.
There is a candidate who wants to co-operate with the Liberals to vanquish the Conservatives (British Columbia’s Nathan Cullen), a couple of candidates with strong union bases (Peggy Nash and Brian Topp) and Mulcair, who flirted with both a Conservative appointment and joining the federal Liberals before finally joining the NDP and winning a traditionally Liberal Montreal seat in 2007.
He wants to move the party to the more electable centre, leading backroom veteran Topp to quip that he is from the “New Democratic Party wing of the NDP.”
Whatever the outcome March 24, Harper and the Conservatives will know who their main opponent is.
End the phony war. Let the 2015 election campaign begin.
