Riding “The Messiah’s” fraying coat-tails

Canadian New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jack Layton missed something when he traveled to the bogus Greek Temple of Barack Hussein Obama in Denver. What Layton missed was the big change that was to come along the very next day. Caught up in Obamamania like your typical groupie, Layton was likely already heading back to the Land of the Maple Leaf when presidential hopeful John McCain, announced Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his VP, the morning after Obama’s acceptance speech. Since Layton’s return, there’s been an election call from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Layton is riding “The Messiah’s” coattails to what he thinks will his fame and fortune at long last!

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By hitching his wagon to what he sees as Obama’s popularity, Layton thinks he will go all the way up from third position to Canadian PM. That’s an audacity of hope that not even Obama can best! Arguably Canada’s most heard from publicity hound, Layton hopes to ride the wave of the political enthusiasm he saw building to the south as a way of bringing the NDP, currently a distant third in public opinion polls, up over the top. “Winds of change are blowing south of the border and many Canadians are catching that sense of optimism for a better North America and indeed a better world,” Layton told cheering supporters on the lawn of the Museum of Civilization, across the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill: (edmontonsun.com, Sept. 9, 2008). “Layton often speaks for many Canadians and the citizens of countries further away too.” (Canadafreepress.com, Sept. 9, 2008). In the U.S. change is the key word of the presidential campaign. The word “change” appeared seven times in Layton’s roughly six-minute campaign kickoff speech, notes the Edmonton Sun. “The Messiah” really charged Layton’s batteries in Denver. Unlike past elections where the NDP readily acknowledged their role as the underdogs against the two bigger parties—the Conservatives and Liberals—Layton now insists that he’s now running seriously for the job of Canada’s prime minister! Hearing him bloviate, it’s now hard to believe that as recently as the 2004 and 2005-06 campaign Layton was pleading (some said begging) to give his party the balance of power in a minority Parliament. What he got instead was the same old, same old. In calling an election, Harper said he would jump off the ledge before the Libs and NDP could push him. And even Harper has suggested that there’s another minority government in the offing with pre-campaign polls backing him up. Layton’s adulation of Barack Obama originates in the similarities between the two. Obama is said to have cut his teeth on communism through his Saul Alinsky mentorship. Layton was a founding father of COPE (Committee of Progressive Electors), a communist front in British Columbia. Obama is brash and arrogant. Ditto for Smilin’ Jack Layton. Obama’s Michelle-picked, stylish boxer shorts are in a twist that Gov. Sarah Palin, a woman, is McCain’s pick for vice president. A lot of smears are being aimed at Gov. Palin’s gender and some allege that the Obama camp is behind the gender smears. Back in 1991 when Layton was running against June Rowlands as Mayor of Toronto, he thought taking Rowlands, portrayed as an older woman, an “old grey mare” in some leftist media, would be a walk in the park. I still remember writing in my publication, Our Toronto after ballots were counted: “An old woman Jack? Call her June Rowlands, Mayor of Toronto.” Meanwhile, riding Obama’s coattails won’t get Layton very far in the Oct. 14 federal election, unless you call being the leader of Canada’s third party—again-- getting ahead in political life.