You Don’t Know Jack
Robert at My Blahg has set up about the “Blogging Dippers” to counter the “Blogging Torries”. I suppose we’ll have to get “Blogging Liberals” going one day, if only because the NDP being more organized that the Liberals is a little embarrassing.
Regardless, I was browsing through the Blogging Dippers blogs and they had surprisingly little on Jack Layton’s latest gambit. So I’ll throw my two cents in on the topic.
The way I see it, there are three possible reasons Layton might be trying to set up an alliance with the Liberals:
1) He doesn’t want to go to the polls now, feeling the NDP are unlikely to increase their seat totals dramatically. On a more altruistic note, he realizes that Same Sex marriage legislation is finished if there’s an election now.
2) He wants there to be an election but also wants to be seen as the guy who’s making an effort to make Parliament work. Canadians don’t want an election but they don’t want the Liberals either. So if Layton gets “dragged” into an election against his will, maybe voters will turn to him.
3) He sees this as the one change for the NDP to be relevant and actually make a difference. This is his change to get rid of evil corporate tax cuts and save the environment. He’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony…
In my view, it’s probably a little bit of all three reasons. Regardless, Martin is desperate right now and he knows this alliance can save him. Layton holds the cards and if he really is interested in making a deal, he can place Paul in a vice and squeeze. If he settles for dropping corporate tax cuts that are back loaded and likely won’t happen during the remaining Martin years (months? weeks?), he’s letting Paul off easy. Now’s the chance for the NDP to become more than a cute little party; Layton should milk this for all it’s worth and make the NDP relevant again.
There’s obviously the fear that he’ll be seen as propping up a corrupt government and that’s where the risk lays in all of this. My gut instinct is that this would only piss off Conservatives but it certainly has the potential to backfire since the next election will most likely revolve around the corruption issue.