In Defence of Thomas Mulcair

I wasn't planning to write anything about the NDP leadership race today, but after yesterday's attack on Thomas Mulcair by Ed Broadbent, I feel I have no choice.

For that attack was ill advised, intellectually dishonest, and cognitively challenged. And mark my words, if the NDP rejects Mulcair it will not only condemn itself to irrelevancy once again, it will help re-elect Stephen Harper, and threaten the very future of this country.

First of all let me say that I was impressed by the quality of all the leadership candidates, who managed to conduct their campaigns without giving Harper any ammunition to attack the eventual winner. As the Liberals have done over and over again. 

Secondly, let me say that I have no axe to grind. I am not a card-carrying member of any party, and all I wish to see is the defeat of the evil Harper regime that is slowly destroying the Canada I love.

When the race began my sentimental favourite was Peggy Nash, because she's strong on economic issues, came from the labour movement that I hold dear to my heart, and because she's a woman. I also thought Nathan Cullen was impressive for urging cooperation between the NDP and the Liberals, even though that view isn't popular with the rank and file.

But after watching the debates in both English and French I have come to believe that Mulcair is the only one who can save us from a fate worse than death, for the following reasons:

One, he is the candidate who Stephen Harper fears the most.

The Stephen Harper Conservatives are starting to attack Mulcair.

There is no greater compliment the Conservatives can pay an opponent than to attack him. Just ask former Liberal leaders Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff if you don’t think that is true.

I'm tired of seeing Harper and his thugs bully one progressive leader after the other. I have seen Mulcair eviscerate his political opponents in the National Assembly in both English and French. I want him to do the same to the Harper Cons, and none of the other candidates can match him in that regard.

Two, they say he is an angry man, and that his Irish temper is a weakness not a strength. But he's not running for the priesthood, this country is full of angry people, who are sick of what the Cons are doing to Canada. And who better to represent them, and harvest that anger, than Mulcair?

And then there is Quebec, where as some may have noticed, the Bloc is back.

And the reason it's back is because Stephen Harper is doing everything to revive it, so he can split the vote four ways again, by making Quebecers feel that they don't belong in Canada. Even if that helps bring the PQ back to power for all the same reasons.

The Conservatives are about as popular as syphilis and bad breath in Quebec, and become all the more so as they introduce (or attempt to introduce) laws and what not that are acutely unpopular here. Take your pick: Bill c-10, a national securities regulator, the abolition of the long gun registry, the promotion of the Alberta oil sands, the anti-abortion murmurs from the Conservative backbench, etc. Harper’s image, meanwhile, is just as awful. As Peter White told me in January, “I’ve had Francophones say to me publicly that they think he’s got ears and a tail, and he eats babies. And these are conservatives.”

So if the NDP is going to recover, the next leader will have to make the case for Canada by attacking the Bloc in Quebec, as well as fighting the Harper Cons. None can do that better than Thomas Mulcair

And to believe that the Liberals can do that better than he can in Quebec is to live in a fantasy world.

Mulcair has also been attacked for appearing to rule out working with the Liberals. But why would he commit to that now? And the way I see it, with Bob Rae as a former NDPer, and Mulcair as a former Liberal, who are better qualified to eventually get the two parties to merge, or at the very least work together ?

Finally I should say this, I am far more to the left than any of the NDP candidates. But if Mulcair wants to reach out to other Canadians who may not share my views on the economy and other issues, by share my belief in our good old Canadian values, that's a good thing not a bad one.

For I totally despise the kind of progressive wankers, who would spend their time counting how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, or defending the "ideological purity" of the party like demented high priests in the Temple of Idiocy. 

When most of them have no idea about the political reality in Quebec. And are only crippling their party's chances of defeating the Harper Cons. Even as their country BURNS.

The members of the NDP have a historic choice to make. Choose a natural born fighter and a brave new world, or retreat to the failures of the past. So they should choose wisely eh? 

For if they make the wrong one, our country doesn't stand a chance. 

And sooner or later they will regret it FOREVER...