A need for clash

It's undoubtedly a plus to see the NDP setting its sights on positioning Jack Layton as the leading alternative to Stephen Harper and his band of merry sockpuppets. But I have to wonder if an apparent strategy of laying off the Libs entirely will make things tougher for the New Democrats as an election progresses - and along lines which may be all too familiar:

(W)e are told that when Jack Layton kicks off the NDP campaign, he will all but ignore both Dion and the Liberals' much-touted "green shift" plan for a carbon tax.

In fact, NDP communications director Brad Lavigne says Layton's opening stump-speech is now into its 14th draft, and still there isn't so much as a mention of the Liberal leader...

Instead, Lavigne says, the Dippers will be immediately launching "a direct and focused campaign against Stephen Harper and the Conservatives.

"Our message will be: Whom do you want as leader: Harper or Layton?"...

The theory is that attacking Harper will solidify the NDP base of party faithful against the PM lefties love to hate.

At the same time, the Dips are hoping their Harper-bashing will attract Liberal voters turned off by Dion, and by the Grits' abysmal failure to mount any kind of effective legislative opposition to the Conservatives since the last election.

NDP strategist Lavigne: "We want to get the message across that we are better at taking on Harper than Dion is."

As I've said before, though, the NDP's path to power depends on the public answering two questions the right way: first, whether the Cons deserve to stay in power, and second, who they want to see as the replacement. And the NDP strategy looks to be completely leaving out the second half of the equation.

Now, it could be that the current plan relies on Dion to crash and burn on his own. But surely some contrast against the Libs, particularly with their weak leadership and train-wreck of a policy centrepiece, would improve the NDP's chances of actually reinforcing the results of any Lib collapse. And that shouldn't be difficult to add into any stump speech: would it require any great amount of effort to postscript any criticism of Harper with "propped up by Stephane Dion"?

Moreover, it's not as if the NDP shouldn't have some institutional memory of the dangers of trying to make an election about its leader while the Libs and Cons take a campaign in a different direction.

After all, it was just 20 years ago that the NDP's attempt to frame a campaign around Ed Broadbent and a series of friendly issues largely ignored by the other parties went awry when the Cons and Libs both made free trade the central point of debate. And while the 1988 result featured the NDP's top federal seat total ever, it still left the party further from overtaking the Libs than it had been four years earlier.

It remains to be seen how the strategy will play out in practice. But laying off the Libs seems all too likely to lead the NDP off public radar when it most needs to get its message heard.