NDP's Layton scores a moral victory
Published Wednesday October 15th, 2008
Party's numbers go up, but not by much
TORONTO - Here's a newsflash: Jack Layton will not be prime minister.
Instead, he will walk into House of Commons with a slightly bigger, noisier caucus, some of his MPs coming from parts of the country where New Democrats were until a few years ago considered political pariahs.
Throughout the election campaign, Layton opened every speech with the pundit-defying declaration that he was running to be prime minister.
It was the sort of over-the-top rhetorical flourish Canadians expected from the NDP leader -- a statement many greeted with polite smiles and "sure you will" nods.
The ballots were still being counted yesterday, but Layton had 38 seats -- a moral victory of sorts after having incrementally dragged the party back from the brink of oblivion at 13 seats eight years ago.
At dissolution, the NDP held 30 seats.
The party's zenith came under Ed Broadbent in the 1988 election when it captured 43 seats and 20.9 per cent of the popular vote.
The failure to match that finish came as a bitter disappointment to NDP supporters, who maintained a subdued vigil at their funky downtown Toronto headquarters, a converted bar.
The party focused its campaign on portraying Layton as the clear alternative to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, someone whom the country could trust to watch out for ordinary families.
As the campaign wound down over the holiday weekend, Layton expressed exasperation that his claim on 24 Sussex Drive was not being taken seriously.
"Oh, have you counted the ballots already?" he shot back at reporters who challenged him on Monday to level with Canadians about his chances.
"Let's just say, it is very rare that polls are the results on election day. There's always an explanation as to why the polls aren't right. I look forward to yours on Wednesday morning."
The meltdown in the stock market and the dismay over the loss of 400,000 manufacturing jobs -- many of them in Ontario -- should have been political gold to the NDP.
Its message of a caring government was contrasted against the sometimes searing attacks ads aimed at Harper and his policies.
The party ran a slick $19.1 million national campaign, the first time in its 47-year history it chose go toe-to-toe with the Liberals and Tories in the dollar department.
It poured $1 million into television advertising in Quebec, hoping to expand its hard-fought 2007 byelection beachhead, where Thomas Mulcair was elected.
The fresh faces coming into the House of Commons include Jack Harris, the party's first-ever MP from Newfoundland, and John Rafferty, who ran unsuccessfully for the New Democrats five times in Thunder Bay.
In the last election, the NDP captured 2.58 million ballots and 17.5 per cent of the popular vote.
Vote-splitting with the Liberals has battered the NDP over the years.
Even in their hour of triumph 20 years ago, the party felt the weight of strategic voting as ballots flew towards the Liberals in desperate bid to stop Brian Mulroney's free trade Tories.
The pattern repeated itself in 1993, 2000, 2004 and 2006.
The 1997 campaign bucked the trend, when Alexa McDonough defied predictions and picked up 21 seats.
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