Picking a winner in the NDP leadership race

Duncan Cameron, Rabble.ca:

Whether it be in an interview given to the CBC's The Current, Sun News, Post News columnist Barbara Yaffe, Toronto Star feature writer Linda Diebel, or her neighbourhood paper, Peggy Nash gets consistently positive media coverage, not a thing the other candidates have be able to do as well. As the estimable critic John Doyle noted in his Globe column: "There's the air of a woman who has seen and heard plenty of male bluster but knows that bluster doesn't get the job done."

The NDP cannot expect to win a general election without securing a high percentage of support from women voters. The next party leader needs a high gender intelligence quotient: be able to understand and respect issues raised by women, and address the injustices handed out to women.

Electing a women leader is nothing new for the NDP. Electing a third woman as the federal leader, at time when the party is in its strongest position in its history, would send a strong message to those concerned with advancing substantive equality for Canadians that the party puts its beliefs on equality into practice, and will deliver on substantive equality issues for Canadians.

Many members want the party to pick an especially aggressive candidate, one well suited to take on Stephen Harper in the House of Commons. Satisfying as this may seem to NDP members justifiably appalled at where Conservatives are taking Canada, Canadians are not particularly interested in watching two political figures yell at each other in the House of Commons.

Elections are won, and leaders made, outside the House of Commons, through direct contact with people -- retail politics -- and indirect contact through the media. In both cases, the objective is to make connections, impact public opinion and mobilize citizens to vote, the way Jack Layton's NDP did in Quebec in the last election.

Peggy Nash is a francophile, someone who loves to speak French and is prepared to fight to see the language flourish all over Quebec, especially in Montréal, and wants Francophone communities (and French language immersion programs) to be secure across Canada.

The NDP will be well served by a leader who comes to Quebec to enlarge the dialogue with progressives from the women's movement, the labour movement, environmental and peace activists, and the student movement, which is fully engaged in a magnificent battle with the provincial Charest Liberals over the business takeover of universities.

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