Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobblehead
Are you saying the NDP are a fringe party?
They aren't someone I would vote for, but they have been around an awful long time. And as mentioned more than a few times in the debate thread, Layton has more charisma than a lot of candidates.
A good chunk of the people who may vote for them aren't doing it because they are voting for the NDP policies. They are doing it because they don't trust either the Liberals or the Conservatives.
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Yes I am. The NDP really only appeals to a small group of personal interests, and their brash ideology tends to attract arts students and disenchanted youth. Which is why their sudden support jump is interesting. Its an interesting place for disenchanted voters to park their vote, that's for sure.
The Greens are aiding that image, but they represent harsher left views than even the deepest Liberal fringe. Sure they've been around for a long time, but never a major player, and never a government.
Layton's charisma is largely due to his ability to shout and attack other leaders with no fear of reprisal. He has no "legacy" of a previous national NDP government blunder, and typically, the other parties rarely felt the need to point out how his policies are not possible/advisable, aside from the occasional remark about being too socialist, which largely goes unnoticed.
Canada's party system should look like the US's since, like the US, there are only two dominant parties, but with the NDP, it gets muddled. Like the Dems and Reps, the Liberals and Conservatives represent the spectrums of policy that are governable. Everything outside is either too hypothetical, extreme, tyrannical or illogical to work as government policy. The CA flirted with being outside the governable realm (arguably with Day they were past the line too), but the NDP are past the line.
This is very roughly that the main parties look like on a VERY general scale (note the CPC/Lib overlap):
<--MLPC--Green--NDP-><----Liberal-<--->--- CPC---> <-----CHP----->
Left------------------[-----------Center-----------]----------------Right
[Governing Range in parenthesis]
* The Bloc are somewhere between the NDP and slightly right of centre depending on policy.