Taking the bait

Craig Cantin points out the pattern of political defections often taking place around conventions or other times when there's plenty of media attention. But perhaps most interesting in the linked story is the completely contradictory set of reasons why the few Dipper defections have taken place:

The co-president of the New Democrats' Quebec campaign in the past election, Carl Hétu, and Pierre Laliberté, the NDP candidate in Hull–Aylmer the past two elections, have both accused Mr. Layton of spending too little time in the province during the election early this year and of centralizing power at the expense of the party's grassroots...

Economist Paul Summerville, who ran for the NDP in the Toronto riding of St. Paul's, said he was leaving the party because the leadership would not counter the strong “anti-market rhetoric” from the grassroots.

So is the problem that the NDP is too centralized, or that it's not centralized enough? And is it plausible that the party could have simultaneously gone in both directions in the last few months?

Of course, individual perceptions may not reflect the wider reality, and the people involved are entitled to their differing reasons for the choice. The sad part is that other newsworthy stories from the convention have momentarily taken a back seat to reporting on the defections: surely a trail-blazing Afghan parliamentarian making the case that the existing NATO mission is only contributing to repression, or a plan to deal with the AIDS crisis, should deserve more attention than the transitory nature of party participation.

While the media feeding frenzy seems unduly tilted toward red herrings for now, there hasn't been any apparent lack of more substantive fare at the convention. The question now is whether that fact will receive its due attention.