Sunday's NDP Leadership debate

John Doyle, The Globe and Mail:

Thomas Mulcair, the alleged front-runner, is a bit of an alpha-male politician, cut from the same cloth as so many others. The hint of a short temper emerges in his statements and answers. On TV, affable he ain’t. He’s good with the stinging remark in the House of Commons but that’s meaningless in the glare of a general election campaign. He has the humourless force of a man whose ego has never been pricked.

Peggy Nash’s presence, measured tone and nuanced answers had the strongest resonance. There’s a fortitude and pragmatism projected in her onscreen persona that’s vivid and, memorably, she uses wit, not put-downs. 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.

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