Something I find people always forget when conducting political analysis is that, even in big wave elections, the electorate itself doesn't change much. We saw this in Quebec in 2011: the NDP wave changed the composition of parliament, but insofar as it changed what the NDP could achieve with that newfound relevance, this involved the NDP conforming itself to Quebeckers' expectations rather than vice-versa.
Likewise, Stephen Harper's vision of "bringing conservatism to the masses" involved picking the messages likeliest to appeal to soccer moms in suburban Toronto, and forbidding his party from discussing anything else in public.
To my sensibilities, this dictates that a Layton NDP government would probably be more "normal" than a lot of people want to assume. More centrist, less ambitious, and much more interested in the problems of suburban voters to the exclusion of the NDP's classic constituencies. (Urban voters, Indigenous and "frontier" voters, students, union members, etc.)
I would expect to see a few more garden-variety scandals down to inexperience and narcissism. Lack of experienced staff, surfeit of inexperienced MPs, and a news media which will be aching to prove that you don't have what it takes. Bev Oda's gonna be laughing into her orange juice.
Layton might have expedited some of the programs that Trudeau is now implementing towards the end of a decade in power: we might have begun to get a program like dental care or childcare in the late 2010s instead of the early 2020s. He might also be doing pharmacare, as Mulcair famously attempted in 2015.
One question mark for me: what does a PM Layton do to the Alberta, BC and Ontario NDPs? I've a notion that he makes Andrea Horwath a more viable candidate for Ontario Premier in 2018, but destroys Rachel Notley in 2019, giving her a career-ending hard landing that prevents her from attempting a comeback in 2023...
Same here!!
Honestly, you probably aren't missing much.
Something I find people always forget when conducting political analysis is that, even in big wave elections, the electorate itself doesn't change much. We saw this in Quebec in 2011: the NDP wave changed the composition of parliament, but insofar as it changed what the NDP could achieve with that newfound relevance, this involved the NDP conforming itself to Quebeckers' expectations rather than vice-versa.
Likewise, Stephen Harper's vision of "bringing conservatism to the masses" involved picking the messages likeliest to appeal to soccer moms in suburban Toronto, and forbidding his party from discussing anything else in public.
To my sensibilities, this dictates that a Layton NDP government would probably be more "normal" than a lot of people want to assume. More centrist, less ambitious, and much more interested in the problems of suburban voters to the exclusion of the NDP's classic constituencies. (Urban voters, Indigenous and "frontier" voters, students, union members, etc.)
I would expect to see a few more garden-variety scandals down to inexperience and narcissism. Lack of experienced staff, surfeit of inexperienced MPs, and a news media which will be aching to prove that you don't have what it takes. Bev Oda's gonna be laughing into her orange juice.
Layton might have expedited some of the programs that Trudeau is now implementing towards the end of a decade in power: we might have begun to get a program like dental care or childcare in the late 2010s instead of the early 2020s. He might also be doing pharmacare, as Mulcair famously attempted in 2015.
One question mark for me: what does a PM Layton do to the Alberta, BC and Ontario NDPs? I've a notion that he makes Andrea Horwath a more viable candidate for Ontario Premier in 2018, but destroys Rachel Notley in 2019, giving her a career-ending hard landing that prevents her from attempting a comeback in 2023...