Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Easter reading.

- We seem to have officially shifted from having commentators merely pointing out the NDP's surge, to making an effort to explain it. And David Goutor looks to have part of the answer:

Another old refrain is that the NDP is benefitting from finally dropping its past socialist rhetoric and adopting more moderate positions. This argument might be credible if there was any sign that voters have stopped seeing the NDP as a left-of-centre party. But the reality is the opposite — Layton and the NDP are in many ways the best known commodities in the election.

This points to a much more compelling explanation of the NDP’s success: Layton is getting rewarded for being so comfortable with what his party stands for and what he has to offer Canadians.
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In one sense, the NDP’s rise can hardly be a surprise, as polls have consistently shown that a large chunk of the population supports many of the party’s policies, especially regarding social programs. It is no accident that the NDP’s rise has occurred just as issues like health care gained more public attention.

It’s also logical that Layton’s biggest gains have been in Canada’s most left-leaning province, Quebec. Indeed, if there is one long-term NDP strategy that is paying off, it is Layton’s effort to establish his party as a social democratic alternative to the Bloc for francophone voters in Quebec.

Of course, a new twist in this unpredictable campaign could turn voters in another direction. And a new wave of contrived hysteria about the threat of NDP socialism is likely on the way. But until voting day, and indeed for future elections, there is a valuable lesson from the NDP’s big surge in 2011: falling back on established values is not a bad way to get ahead.

And one can extend the analysis a few steps further in noting why the other parties haven't done so well. The Cons may be trying to take back the title of the party most opposed to government action, but they've thoroughly muddied up that message by also trying to take credit at the local level for stimulus spending. And the Libs seem to have run as far as they could from their platform and supposed principles under Stephane Dion - ensuring that voters would have little idea what they claim to stand for, and even less reason to believe whatever consistent message they can decipher.

- Meanwhile, Lorne Gunter is rather more annoyed that the NDP is gaining momentum. But he too offers a plausible explanation as to why it's happening:

There is no doubt in my mind why the NDP have so far been the big movers in the federal election campaign: Alone among the parties, the New Democrats have offered a positive vision for the country if they were to win the May 2 vote. I may not like their vision (and I don't)...But at least Jack Layton and his crew have managed to raise themselves above the name-calling and mudslinging - no matter how briefly - and give voters a reason to choose their party that doesn't involve only scare tactics about the threat posed by their opponents.
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(T)he NDP's blend of green (environmental) and red (social-democratic) policies is at least a real vision for the country, whether or not you share that vision. And in an election almost devoid of vision, it's little wonder that the brightest light is attracting the most interest.

- Patrick Brethour points out another area where the Libs' attacks on the NDP make absolutely no sense:

The problem for the Liberals (in criticizing the NDP's cap-and-trade plan) is this: They envision having their own cap-and-trade system, functioning long before 2015, not much later than the NDP. Within a year, two years at the most, the Liberal program would be operating, according to Liberal environment critic Gerard Kennedy.

“We’d have a bit of a hurry-up agenda,” Mr. Kennedy said in an interview in the opening week of the campaign, adding that a Liberal government would convene a first ministers’ meeting that included climate change issues in this calendar year.

“We do believe that it’s possible to do within a year or two, to have something up and running,” he said.
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The Liberals seek to split an exceedingly slender hair: The tax-loving, unrealistic NDP would move within 10 months to set up a carbon trading system and use whatever funds it generates to pay for green programs.

But the fiscally responsible, thrifty Liberals would take 12 to 24 months to set up a carbon trading system and use whatever funds it generates to pay for green programs. Two months, evidently, is the difference between a fiscal apocalypse, and responsible government.

Perhaps the Liberal war room can divine the difference; it’s doubtful that Canadian voters can manage the feat.

Though in fairness to the Libs, they do have ample experience in claiming (however implausibly) that their arbitrary choice of two months' difference in timing makes for the lone explanation as to how programs promised for upwards of a decade were never delivered.

- As per usual, there's every reason for caution about reading too much into vote projections based on uncertain inputs and assumptions. But the Project Democracy numbers pointed out by Paul Dechene suggest there's a real chance to paint most of Regina orange next week.

- Finally, Douglas Bell offers his take on strategic voting in response to a Lib supporter whose actual ideas look to be a far better fit for the NDP:

And while he sat there spinning , I thought “I love this guy.” I thought that because he believes that the Charter actually matters and he believes that the G20 crackdown was bullshit and he believes a guaranteed annual income is the natural outcome of a just society and he believes a lot of the same stuff I believe. Plus he’s not a cynical bastard like a lot of other people in politics.

But this time, as much as I’ve pimped for the coalition and as much as I believe a Tory majority would be a disaster, I want to disagree with my friend. This time I want to vote NDP because it’s the right goddamn thing to do; because they ran the best campaign and because maybe just maybe politics isn’t about this campaign or the next campaign but the one after that.