How dare I suggest that the one thing the NDP needs right now is actually American?  It may amount to political blasphemy to suggest that the pro-Canada New Democrats need to rely so heavily from an American.  Yikes!  I’m not going to be able to walk the halls at work next week.

However, take what Hillary Clinton is calling Bernie these days, and you see where I’m going.  Hillary Clinton has been musing for some time that Bernie Sanders isn’t really a Democrat.  He hasn’t campaigned for Democrats.  She goes on to say that he is a relatively new Democrat.  Her surrogates are now dropping the ‘relatively’ and calling Bernie Sanders a new Democrat. If I were a Canadian New Democrat, I’d be smiling.

There is something mystic about Bernie Sanders.  He’s a rebel with a cause.  He understands that the status quo, the devils of society – Wall Street, the crony capitalists, the lobbyists, the fat cat CEOs – they have helped themselves while millions of Americans languish in joblessness and wage stagnation.  That the perpetual problems of race, gender inequity, the rich/poor gap – all those things that people always talk about, but never fix – will never be addressed unless the status quo is denounced and rejected.  Bernie speaks for the people who have been forgotten, the ones who have fallen through the cracks.  Through the new Democrat, they have found their voice and they aren’t backing down.

As the NDP assemble in Edmonton to discuss their future, they best heed the message of the new Democrat from the United States.  Trade deals aren’t free or fair.  The political class controls the public purse leaving average people helpless.  Pay equity remains.  Disenfranchised groups continue to lose hope.  Corporations have gotten too big.  Nation-building doesn’t exist.  Our social safety net remains fragile even if austerity has been pushed back for another 5 or 10 years in Canada. I remain convinced that there is appeal in this type of message in Canada.

The problem for the NDP is they have a lack of congruence between their leadership and the message.  Part of the problem is that the NDP may have forgotten what that message is.   I affix the same problem for the NDP to arguments I have made in reference to Conservatives.  The problem is that the NDP, like the Conservatives, think flashy policy is enough to win elections.  It isn’t.  If you come up with a policy like $15 child care or a $15 minimum wage (they should take on the #its15 hashtag), but you don’t explain to voters the underlying problems such a flashy policy seeks to fix, then people won’t understand why change might be necessary.  You need to explain what affordable child care does (i.e. empowering women to participate in the economy) and do the hard work of defining the societal problem in simple terms and have people agree with your definition.  Without a strong problem clearly defined, people are going to think you lack purpose and conviction.  That’s Tom Mulcair’s problem.

If the NDP do the odd thing of adopting the Leap Manifesto while keeping Mulcair as leader, that would be the ultimate identity crisis.  It means they will have a message without a messenger.  The leader does not have the conviction to convincingly explain all the problems Leap is trying to fix.

After all, Mulcair is more Tony Blair than Bernie Sanders.  For years, the NDP have thought that mediating to the centre was their ticket to success, which might have been true at a time when the Liberals seemed incapable of holding on to the centre.  But that’s obviously not true now.  The Liberals have taken the entire Tony Blair-esque space and have exposed the NDP as having an identity crisis.

Unfortunately for Mulcair, even if he does meet his 70% benchmark, he will be plagued with problems for the remainder of his leadership.  When you lack authenticity, it’s only a matter of time before supporters start to see it.  And when supporters start to see these problems, the ones that prop up every leaders’ approval ratings, everyone else will start to ask questions.

Whether he stays or goes, Mulcair’s days are numbered.  NDP delegates in Edmonton control whether that happens quickly or whether they have to lose another election to figure it out.