Bouncing back

Remember all the talk about how Jack Layton's participation in the opposition coalition would make him so permanently unpopular that the NDP would have no choice but to dump him as the party leader? Because the public apparently doesn't:

Nationally, NDP Leader Jack Layton got a favourable rating from 42 per cent, with 39 per cent unfavourable.

Of course, there's still a ways to go before Layton regains his place on top of the list for public leadership impressions. But he's already back ahead of Stephen Harper in the net ratings, with relative favourability shooting up from -12% last month in the wake of the Libs' decision to prop up the Harper government, to +3% now even as both the Cons and the Libs have tried to marginalize the NDP. Which would tend to suggest that Layton's brand was always durable enough to recover quickly from bearing the full brunt of the Cons' attacks.

Moreover, the prospects for Layton only figure to get better as time goes by. After all, Stephen Harper wouldn't seem to have much room to grow after three years of polarizing government - which might explain why he's trying to reach eyes outside Canada rather than dealing with the voters he's already alienated at home. And the costs of Michael Ignatieff's choice to support Harper are just now starting to be reflected in the commercial press and in Lib circles, meaning that the relative lack of negatives which gives him the best relative ratio for now doesn't figure to last much longer.

So while some are eager to bury Layton based on the flimsiest of assumptions, the reality is that he figures to once again serve as a positive factor in the NDP's push to bring in new voters.