On moving over

Douglas Bell nicely diagnoses the problem with Libs' continuous shift to the right. But if one needed more evidence that he's anything but an NDP voice, it's obvious from his choice of solutions (italics in original):

(H)ere's a thought: what if progressive conservatives never really lost a party political platform from which to exercise their franchise? What if they simply moved over to the Liberals? A red tory by any other name... That of course is Michael Ignatieffs argument for the revival of Liberal fortunes across the country. Here's Mike making this very point during the last election campaign:

"This is a Conservative party that's pretending to be in the centre but is actually to the right of any progressive conservatism we knew through the 1980s. Everything I know tells me that there are more progressive conservative voters that could come to us than there are voters to the left of us by a factor of two to one. [Harper's speaking] this strange new language and they don't recognize themselves."

Only thing is the numbers didn't and dont (sic) add up. The NDP splits the vote in such a way as to allow the Tories to maintain minority government after minority government. Unless and until Ig realizes that the radical center is the road to political nowhere Canada will continue to elect Conservative governments, and progressives of whatever strip (sic) can get stuffed.

Now, there isn't much room for doubt that the Libs now occupy the territory once held by Red Tories. Just ask Joe Clark, or Kim Campbell, or David Orchard, or any number of other one-time PCs who have already offered their support to Libs and/or major parts of their platform in recent election campaigns.

But while that should indeed signal a problem with the party for actual progressive members, the solution isn't to simply put a slightly more leftish face on the same basic structure. And indeed, the newfound presence of Red Tories and other elements moving the Libs to the right may only serve to ensure that progressive voices aren't going to be able to influence the direction of a party which had already showed a clear pattern of putting progressive concerns last before that shift.

Rather than looking at Ignatieff's attempt to run as the candidate of the "radical center" as a problem, the better reaction would seem to me to be viewing that situation as an opportunity. If the Libs are indeed determined to seek the ideological territory of the Mulroney Conservatives despite the lack of a viable path to power in that direction, that creates an ideal chance to bring together progressives currently under both the NDP and Lib banners to break the impasse. And the further Ignatieff manages to lead the Libs toward nowhere, the better the chances of replacing Harper with a government which will actually change Canada's current right-wing direction - which should be a result which all progressives can get behind.