[LINK] "No compelling case for Mulcair to stay as NDP leader"

[rfmcdonald]

Chantal Hébert's analysis of the NDP's central problem, published in the Toronto Star, is compelling. Why is Mulcair still leading the party, again?

Even as NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair launches a bid for a mandate to lead the party for another four years and a second election campaign, his Quebec base is slipping from under him.

If Mulcair relinquished his Outremont seat tomorrow, the NDP would be hard-pressed to hold the Montreal riding against a born-again Liberal party.

The same is true of many of the other NDP seats in Quebec.

It is no accident that most of the New Democrats who survived the last election had higher profiles than the rest of the Quebec pack. That and a four-way split in the vote rather than the party label earned 16 of them a ticket to the new Parliament.

To be fair, none of Mulcair’s 2012 leadership challengers would have done as well in Quebec last fall. But are those 16 seats reason enough to believe Mulcair remains the best choice to lead the NDP to a stronger outcome in Quebec and across Canada in four years’ time?

As things stand today the evidence is, at best, inconclusive.