Learning from past mistakes

It hasn't taken Jack Layton long to point out the folly of strategic Liberal votes:

(I)n Oshawa – and in more ridings than you’d think across Canada – (some Canadians) voted Liberal thinking they’d get a Liberal MP. And in Oshawa – and across Canada – they got a Stephen Harper Conservative instead.

Make no mistake about it. In places like Oshawa, where the Liberals run third. A vote for the Liberals helps elect Stephen Harper Conservatives. Conservatives who don’t reflect your values. Conservatives who are just plain wrong on the issues I was just talking about, and who were ineffective in parliament.

I'd still love to see this supplemented with the question of whether Canada can ever be safe from a Harper-type government as long as the Cons are seen as the top government-in-waiting. And we can never be sure that even Layton's toned-down message now will be remembered by January 23.

But at the very least, the Libs' main strategy from 2004 isn't going unchallenged. And with the Libs' guns so far trained almost entirely on the Cons and the Bloc (not to mention each other with regard to Ignatieff), that has to have the NDP headed in the right direction.