A good post-mortem from the Tyee.

[CanSocDem]

This article supports some of the problems mentioned quietly during the campaign and expands on the ideas that were mentioned here in other threads.

"McGrath's comments are delusional. The NDP's monumental defeat was so devastating that it may take a generation before even a chance to form government happens again.
But McGrath wasn't alone. NDP leader Tom Mulcair's special advisor Brad Lavigne's statements were equally absurd."


http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/10/27/NDP-Was-Not-Ready/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=271015


Those NDP "battle of the blands" recent campaigns all had several elements in common:

• A mistaken belief that a conservative, play it safe, front-runner, government-in-waiting type strategy would succeed no matter what;

• A focus on risk-averse platforms designed not to rock the boat with centrist voters who might worry what an NDP government would do;

• Running like pale Liberals instead of colourful New Democrats, leaving voters to pick the real thing over the imitation version;

• Weak, mostly content-free advertising focused on the leader only;

• Very few strong social democratic campaign promises that might excite the base; and

• An inability to pivot as circumstances changed during the election.


" In the end, this election showed that it was the NDP, not Trudeau, that was just not ready -- not ready to show they could govern Canada by campaigning effectively to win."

[Saviolo]

1. It's a shame

The NDP really did not campaign well.

I think it's a far bigger shame that the party that has the best ad campaign wins, not the party with the best policies. It's all PR and talking points and being on message and not alienating people with too many ideas. It's reacting to attacks from the CPC and then attacking each other in snarky ads, jokes about hair and beards. How do we make the whole system better.

The major parties could change the dialogue overnight if they just talked about their policies in ads and never mentioned other parties or their leaders. I wish it were illegal for the parties to mention other parties in their ads, and force them to only talk about their own platforms and policies.

But it'll never happen. The mud will be slung.

[Spazito]

2. I agree with you re the NDP did not campaign well...

In the beginning, they came out like gangbusters but in the last two weeks it seemed to fall off the rails. For me, it was when Mulcair promised a balanced budget and that became the focus instead of on the social policies which were gaining them support in the beginning.

[Spazito]

3. It is a very good post-mortem...

I can't disagree with it at all.