[LINK] Why Ontario New Democrats welcome Rae’s ascension to Liberal throne"

[rfmcdonald]

I've been arguing that the defection of strongly disliked former Ontario NDP premier to the Liberal Party, the defection of Bob Rae to the Liberal Party and most recently to the interim party leadership, and the ascent of popular and successful Jack Layton to the federal NDP leadership may remove stigma in Ontario against the NDP and lead to its transfer to the Liberal Party. Adam Radwanwski at the Globe and Mail makes these points, and also that the depth in time between Rae's failed NDP government and now may work to the NDP's advantage.

Since 1995, when it was unceremoniously relegated to third-party status, the NDP has been struggling to unload its baggage from the Rae era. The incompetence of that government may have been exaggerated, and at times it’s been too easy an excuse for the party’s subsequent failure to connect with voters. Still, the damage to the NDP’s brand in the province – and the extent to which that impeded rebuilding efforts – was undeniable.

Now, at long last, that brand is starting to recover. In part, it’s simply a matter of time; many current voters weren’t even living in the province when the NDP was in power, and others weren’t old enough to care. Even for those who voted back in 1990, the memories have faded.

But credit Mr. Rae’s career path for helping speed up that recovery. Since he began self-identifying as a Liberal, and one of most prominent ones in the country at that, it’s been a lot harder for other Liberals – competing with the NDP for left-of-centre votes – to dredge up those old memories. And now that he’s leading the federal Liberals, it’s all but impossible.

That doesn’t mean that Premier Dalton McGuinty, campaigning for a third term this year, won’t still try. In recent speeches, he’s suggested that the province tried the NDP once and won’t make that mistake again. But to that, provincial Leader Andrea Horwath could easily respond that the NDP failed because it wasn’t led by a real New Democrat, that there’s really no connection between the party then and today.

Ms. Horwath probably won’t go quite that far, because in fact there are some connections. Veteran New Democrats who toiled for the party in the Rae era are sensitive to all their hard work being dismissed by the current leadership. So she tends to cite a couple of achievements from back then, while distancing herself from the party’s overall record.

But really, Ms. Horwath doesn’t need to say all that much on the subject at all. The ambiguity around Mr. Rae’s legacy as a New Democrat speaks for itself.