While the B.C. Liberals have debated among themselves for months now whether or not they should change the name of their party, perhaps it is actually the NDP that needs to have precisely the same kind of discussion among their own members. IN M Ke
The NDP's crushing election defeat may suggest its best-before date is long past. The party has won a measly three elections and lost 20 of them in 60 years, and while it almost always gains about 40 per cent of the vote, it also usually falls short of winning by several thousand votes in a dozen or so ridings.
The NDP has to ask itself that if it can't beat a government that has a mile high stack of scandals and controversies on its baggage sheet, can it ever win?
This past election showed once again that no matter how many misgivings people may have about the free enterprise coalition government a good number of them simply can't bring themselves to vote for the NDP.
So why is that? The answer is ground in history. Originally, the NDP almost gleefully painted itself as a party with ties to socialism, and has now spent two decades frantically trying to bury that association in the public's mind.
As socialist and even social democratic governments around the world get tossed to the curb, the NDP has never really been able to redefine itself as a party that is not about raising taxes, making government larger and addressing income equality through redistribution of wealth.
Party candidates and leaders may insist, time and time again, that they are not the party of the past and that they are genuinely interested in making economic growth a priority.
The trouble is, a great many people (or, in electoral terms, "just enough people") simply don't believe them. Instead, they view the NDP precisely as its political opponents want them to view it: as the "tax and spend" party that will interfere in your life and endanger your economic future.
There doesn't have to be a great many people who subscribe to this view. As I mentioned earlier, it only takes several thousand voters over a few ridings who view things this way to determine the election's outcome (in this past election, if fewer than 3,000 people spread over eight ridings had voted NDP instead of for the B.C. Liberals the New Democrats would have won).
New Democrats may complain about the nasty attacks their opponents launch at them and decry them for any inaccuracies contained in them, but by doing so they are missing the key point: those attacks work precisely because they exploit, with devastating effectiveness, the most vulnerable parts of the NDP's historical image and record.
Since their devastating election loss, a number of New Democrats have observed that the party has to make a fundamental decision: is it is a social movement or is it a political party interested in forming government?
A social movement holds a lot of meetings where overblown rhetoric is the main agenda item, and where the main activity is passing a lot of motions.
A political party makes compromises, bends its ideals and gores some sacred cows.
The NDP is controlled by something called the provincial council, the members of which have been in control of the party's philosophy and direction for many years, through all those election defeats.
Is such a body at all useful for a genuine political party seeking power? It's a question party members might want to wrestle with.
The NDP is at a genuine crossroads. The party is a coalition of interests, and one of its main fault lines - environmental protection versus industrial development - was exposed during the election campaign, and it is a fissure that remains exposed.
The two opposing views are on a collision course within the party, and issues like fracking, pipeline construction and mining may ultimately tear the NDP apart. Trying to be both a strong environmental party as well as a party that favors industrial development may prove to be impossible.
For months now, the New Democrats have watched with relish as the B.C. Liberals tried to square their stormy past with getting re-elected, and fretted about their apparently wounded brand.
How ironic, then, that it is perhaps the NDP "brand" that is broken, perhaps forever.
And that means it is that party - and not the B.C. Liberals - who may need a name change and a political rebranding.
