NDP Deputy Leader Libby Davies uses Gaza crisis to deliberately undermine Thomas Mulcair

There's an internal war going on in the New Democratic Party over Israel. The party's hard-core, anti-capitalist, loony-left fanatics have the end of the Jewish state as part of their religious canon. However, as crazy as he knows they are, and distasteful as he finds the fanatical bigots in the NDP,  party leader Thomas Mulcair is in a difficult position with them.

The hard left and their effective leaders Libby Davies and Megan Leslie represent the zealous activists who do lots of the party legwork during elections, and they make up a core part of NDP support. But by appealing to the nutcase left, the NDP simultaneously alienates voters who aren't ideologically rabid fanatics. To make the NDP more palatable to sane voters, Mulcair has done some work to sanitize the party, recently keeping hateful anti-Israel candidates like Paul Manly from seeking the party's nomination for a federal seat. But he also has to tread the fine line of continuing to engage the NDP's worst elements.

Libby Davies

That tightrope Mulcair is walking is a difficult one, and increasingly so as with an apparently deliberate effort by his Deputy Leader Libby Davies to undermine him.

Davies severely embarrassed her party and ruined an opportunity for the NDP to capitalize on the Conservative and previous Liberal governments' handling of the Afghan file by become a major distraction with her anti-Israel rhetoric in 2010. In a statement made to a citizen journalist in a YouTube video, Davies' effectively said that Israel had no legitimacy as a country. The upheaval that report caused in the media and among her own party led to Davies being condemned by Mulcair and a humiliating pilgrimage by the late NDP leader Jack Layton to Israel's ambassador in Canada to apologize for her comments.

In the aftermath of that 2010 catastrophe for the NDP,  Davies was told in no uncertain terms by the party leaders, including Mulcair, to stay away from commenting on international issues that had no bearing on her brief as Health Critic. But among the many things of which Libby Davies can be accused, being bright or good at impulse control are not among them. Davies continued to occasionally veer into outbursts about Israel, such as with her support for the Sea Hitler flotilla that attempted to break the arms embargo of the terror group Hamas.

Now, just days after NDP leader Mulcair issued a balanced call for the cessation of hostilities and blamed Hamas for the continuation of violence, Davies is undermining her party leader by endorsing a petition which places all the blame for the Gaza crisis on Israel.

Composed by her fellow NDP Sea Hitler supporter, Quebec MP Alexandre Boulerice,  the petition completely neglects to mention Hamas but does state: "There is only one solution to achieve this for both Palestinians and Israelis: putting an end to the occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza. " Absent from Boulerice's and Davies' reasoning is that the blockade of Gaza was caused by the launch of missiles from it and the fact that it is controlled by a terror group committed to not only the elimination of Israel but the murder of any Jew it can find. The West Bank occupation continues, despite many offers that would have given the Palestinians a state of their own, because no Palestinian leadership has been found that would negotiate in good faith. 

The Davies wing's resentment of Thomas Mulcair is well known. Murray Dobbin, a columnist for rabble.ca, a radical, far-left online magazine published by Libby Davies' spouse Kim Elliott, recently sent out an email encouraging NDP supporters to withhold donations from the party. Dobbin's email pronounced:   "...Mulcair sucker-punched Vancouver MP Libby Davies for a Youtube interview in which Davies criticized Israel's illegal occupation. It was a disgusting betrayal of NDP principles and ended up with the humiliation of Jack Layton who went cap-in-hand to the Israeli ambassador and apologized. It was a low point in the NDP's and Layton's history. Fortunately, a wave of protest prevented Layton from demoting Davies. Now Mulcair, a devoted Zionist who refuses to adhere to the NDP’s policy on Palestine, is at it again...Just another reason to boycott all NDP fund-raising appeals until the party begins behaving in a principled manner worthy of a social democratic party."

The Davies wing of radicals within the NDP want to use Israel as a dagger to stab Thomas Mulcair in the back. Whether Mulcair can strike a balance with them, is undermined by them, or is forced to discipline them is something that will be a very interesting situation to watch unfold in the coming months before the next election.

York University doubles down on its stupidity

You might think that if you choose to live in a country, it's reasonable to expect to have to adapt to its values, laws and culture.

Nope! At least not at Toronto's academic joke, York University.

There, in order to accommodate a request from a student who doesn't want to be around women "for religious reasons" the University capitulated and wants to allow him to do an assignment without any women around. Now I suppose I could see the point if the women came in to the exam looking like this:

But as it's York U, I'd be ready to bet they're more likely to look like this:

By the logic York is using, a student could refuse to attend class with other students because they are Gay or Jews or any number of criteria which violate the basic tenets of Canadian equity and fairness.

I'm also surprised that no one seems to have raised the obvious question of how the Sociology student in question could ever function effectively in his field if he is unwilling to interact with women.

At least it's encouraging that even NDP leader Thomas Mulcair is pushing back against this latest bit of civilizational suicide, saying, "I don't think a university should be accommodating such a demand."

Kelly McParland: Linda McQuaig is running for the NDP. But which NDP?

...Linda McQuaig is considered a star candidate, and is as old-timey NDP as you can get.  Big Oil is bad. Rich people are bad. “Interfering” government keeps the world civilized and creates the environment for success. Taxes are good, especially high taxes. McQuaig advocates a marginal tax rate of 60% for incomes above $300,000, and 70% for incomes above $2.5-million — well above the “confiscatory” level identified by her would-be party leader. Nevermind, Mr. Mulcair said on the weekend, McQuaig is an “extraordinary” candidate, but should she win she’d would be part of the “team.”

He’s right, that is extraordinary: a candidate who has campaigned for years for higher taxes, whose reputation is based substantially on her dedication to that cause and her willingness to champion it in the face of much criticism, but who says she’d drop it and play along with a policy she rejects if she manages to get elected. And a leader who is happy to have her on the team even though she stands for everything he says is yesterday’s NDP.

Read the whole article at The NATIONAL POST 

More on Linda McQuaig HERE

Federal NDP Deputy Leader promotes vibrator-dispensing sex party on her website

You've got to hand it to NDP leader Thomas Mulcair. He has a reputation for anger management issues and being a bit...off in the head.

So what better way to make himself look even-keeled and reasonable than to assign the two Deputy Leader roles to a pair of whack-jobs next to whom, by comparison, he is the model of sanity.

In that context, it makes sense he assigned those roles to Israel-hatin,' 9-11 conspiracy nut Loony Libby Davies, from the the junkie-haven of East Vancouver and on the Atlantic side of the country, Israel-hatin' Megan Leslie, who is promoting a sex party where free vibrators are on offer.

Given the NDP's constituency, this may be a good move for Leslie, but how it makes the national party look opens up other questions.

h/t BC Blue

Canadian socialist party will stop using "socialism" to describe its policies

The New Democratic Party of Canada realizes that the term "socialism" has developed negative connotations over the years. The years of abysmal economic failure and eventual totalitarianism.

To combat that perception, they just voted to remove the term "socialism" from its constitution.

The policies won't change - just the way they describe them.

Now if they could just stop their members of Parliament from exposing their communist sympathies, they might be a little more convincing.



Related:

John Ivison: Socialism issue brings quick crack in NDP unity at party convention

100 million murders later and the NDP still learns nothing from communism

Communism: Murdering more people than Hitler in the name of a totalitarian ideology since 1945..and counting

Stupid Canadian communists complain about being called communists

There's stupid, there's mentally ill, and then there's that fusion of the two which is rabble.ca


This is the item that their little red underpants are all twisted over.

Rabble is the gift that just keeps on giving... 

Tattooed putative 3rd party leader calls Canada's governing party and Official Opposition "fringe" parties

Is this the guy you want to be in charge of your nation's economy?

NDP standing against workers to serve Union Bosses

More here

With his clear support, will Israel's supporters warm to Obama?

Quite a few supporters of Israel were pessimistic in the extreme about the prospects of Barack Obama being re-elected. But that feeling was far from unanimous among staunch advocates for the survival of the Jewish state.

Prior to his reelection, praise for Obama's dedication to Israel's security came from a people varying from  Harvard Law Prof Alan Dershowitz to right-wing former Lukid Foreign Minister Moshe Arens.

At a lecture last winter in Toronto, Arens said of Obama's speech to the UN that it was as if not more pro-Zionist than anything ever said to that body by an Israeli leader.

With Israel embroiled in another round of violence trying to prevent rocket attacks by the Hamas terrorist government in Gaza, Obama's words may provide some reassurance.

Though it doesn't officially begin until January, for all intents and purposes, Obama is in his second term and does not have to concern himself with another political campaign. He is free to say what he likes and what he's said so far has been fully supportive of Israel.

Said Obama: "We are fully supportive of Israel's right to defend itself...and we will continue to be supportive of Israel's tight to defend itself."

His statements are forceful and non-equivocating, which stands in stark contrast to Canada's morally relativistic New Democrat Party. The NDP's opportunistic leader, Thomas Mulcair is known to be a supporter of Israel but is unlikely to be publicly forthright about it, in order to placate the extremist anti-Israel    fanatics within his party whose support he will require in the next general election.

As for President Obama, his support for Israel in this crisis has been as forceful as anything said by his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was considered the most pro-Israel US President to date.

Canada's Official Opposition to introduce Bill outlawing blasphemy against Mohammed and Jack Layton

OTTAWA - In the wake of protests by Canadian Muslims insulted by a YouTube video mocking Islam's prophet Mohammed and comments by Conservative MP Rob Anders about the New Democratic Party's former leader who is worshiped as a deity withing his party, Canada's Official Opposition announced plans to introduce a Bill outlawing blasphemy.

"The Supreme Court has ruled that there are limits to free speech in Canada" said Opposition House Leader Nathan Cullen,  "and surely insults to divine figures like Jack Layton and the Prophet Mohammed cannot be accepted in civil society."

Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair was quick to clarify that the proposed Bill would not impose new  restrictions on rights Canadians already enjoy. "These blasphemy regulations will not curtail Canadians' right to insult Jesus, Christianity, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and other religions beside Islam and the deities and prophets they hold sacred. But just as you cannot shout fire in a crowded theater, it is now globally accepted that insults to the Prophet affect his followers in a way that inevitably leads to murder and violence."

NDP Deputy Leader Libby Davies explained why Jack Layton is to be included as a protected figure withing the blasphemy Bill.  "Obviously the right wing neo-Cons like Rob Anders learned nothing from the death threats Christie Blatchford received following the blasphemous article she wrote about Jack days after his death", she stated. "Jack is sitting in heaven with the Prophet Mohammed where the two are now dear friends, and they are both furious at the posthumous insults they are expected to endure. Obviously stronger measures are needed and legislation is the only way to appease their fury."

Penalties in the proposed legislation would be beheading for a first offense, with subsequent infractions punishable by compelling the offender to listen to children's entertainer Raffi sing his rendition of Jack Layton's deathbed letter.

Website of NDP Deputy Leader's spouse promotes anti-Semitic hate rally

She isn't charismatic and is far from being a leading intellectual light in a political organization not particularly known for its sagacity. But Libby Davies is the darling of the assiduous activist wing of the New Democratic Party. To mollify that essential bloc, as a matter of expediency, newly elected party leader Thomas Mulcair had to retain her as NDP Deputy Leader.

Unfortunately for Mulcair, heavy, squalid baggage comes along with his Deputy Leader, doing more damage to the NDP's reputation with the general public than the benefit derived from energizing the far left of his leftist political party.

As responsible political leaders across Ontario are speaking out against a hate rally scheduled to take place this Saturday, the spouse of the Deputy Leader of the National NDP is promoting it.

Davies' same-sex spouse Kim Elliott is the publisher of the fanatically anti-Israel website rabble.ca, which has prided itself on being the media sponsor of the anti-Semitic hate fest its organizers call  "Israeli Apartheid Week."  Davies frequently appears at rabble-supported events and now her wife's website is promoting an anti-Semitic al Quds rally in Toronto. While rabble euphemistically calls it a "Stand up for Palestine Rally" the notorious event they are promoting is actually a call for the destruction of Israel by followers of Iran's late Ayatollah Khomeini and regularly features speakers espousing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

A huge problem for the NDP

Davies being a huge problem for the NDP seems to happen with some regularity.

She has introduced crackpot conspiracy theories in Parliament in which she repeated accusations of the US government being complicit in the 9-11 Muslim terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Equally embarrassing to her party, Davies is obsessively fixated with demonizing Israel, despite being remarkably ignorant of the history and issues affecting the Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

When the NDP had both the Conservatives and Liberals on the ropes over the release of documents related to the torture of Afghan prisoners at times when both those parties had been in power, Davies single-handedly managed to derail her party's advantage with her prejudices. Appearing at a virulently anti-Israel rally, she gave an impromptu interview on video in which she expressed support for a total boycott of Israel while adding statements suggesting the Jewish state had no legitimacy.

The Liberals and Conservatives pounced on this opportunity, putting the NDP on the defensive and it was about Davies' shocking utterances rather than the Afghan issue that the 2010 summer session of Parliament closed. Davies was even reprimanded by senior members of her own caucus, including then co-Deputy Leader Mulcair.

The National Post reported at the time:

Mr. Mulcair said that Ms. Davies.. should also apologize and retract her comments supporting a boycott. He said it is particularly “egregious” since she is a deputy leader of the party.“As much as it’s difficult, if any individual member of Parliament goes off-script on any issue of policy that is well-defined by the party, it would be a problem,” said Mr. Mulcair. “But that problem is of course compounded in the case of someone who putatively, with the title that she holds, would give more weight to these views that are not the views of the party.”

Like an addict who needs a fix, despite al the damage she had done to her own party and her collegues' warnings, Davies could not help herself and returned to the issue. She could not restrain herself from  boasting about attending an anti-Israel rally in Paris featuring a French politician who had been prosecuted for anti-Semitism.

The days of Libby Davies humiliating the New Democrats are far from over. How long Thomas Mulcair lets her do it from one of the party's top positions is an interesting question. Without doubt, the Liberals and Tories would like to see it continue for as long as possible.



h/t Sassy Wire

NDP Leader Mulcair dissembles about anti-Israel fanaticism in his party

The perception of being basically honest was one of the few assets possessed by the leader of Canada's Official Opposition. Though intelligent, his propensity to arrogance and divisive, angry outbursts,made the best thing Thomas Mulcair had going for him was that most Canadians just don't know him very well.

Last Friday, his deceptive claim that the NDP is not anti-Israel because the party isn't officially calling for its destruction has sent the pretense of Mulciar's integrity flying out the window.

Not only does the NDP contain some of the most hateful, vociferously anti-Israel politicians in Canada, but he has appointed them to senior positions in his party.

His Deputy Leader Libby Davies was known for being a fixture at anti-Israel demonstrations. Davies effectively denied Israel's legitimacy in 2010, then "apologized" in a manner suggesting she was either completely insincere, or was pathetically uniformed about a subject she has obsessively pursued during her political career.  Then the next summer in France, NDP Deputy Leader Davies appeared at a Sea Hitler support rally featuring a French politician who had been prosecuted for anti-Semitism.

Davies is intimately involved with the fanatically anti-Israel website rabble.ca which is published by her same-sex spouse Kim Elliott. That union-funded, neo-Marxist alternative media site is the "media sponsor" of Israeli Apartheid Week, an anti-Israel hate fest condemned by both the Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Party.

Unlike many in his caucus,Mulcair himself is not an enemy of the Jewish state and does not want it eliminated. But his motives are fairly obvious. Much of the NDP adhere to simplistic, facile notions of oppression theory and view Israel as a capitalist, imperialist outpost in the middle east. Indeed almost all of the other NDP leadership candidates and the energetic activist wing that admires Davies takes that view.

Were Mulcair to repudiate them, it would cause a rift in his party that he wants to avoid, particularly so early into his leadership.

Yet by denying the obvious, and his recent gaffes the pitted western Canada against the interests of the anti-oil sands environmental lobby, he has shown that he can neither be trusted to be truthful nor can he make the New Democrats a credible party fit to govern the nation.

Libby Davies: As intelligent as she is beautiful

Micheal Coren and Brian Lilley discuss the NDP's resident useful idiot, the party's Deputy Leader Libby Davies




thanks to SDAMatt for the video

'Tin Foil' Tom Mulcair`s NDP: Khadr good, Black bad

Law abiding Canadians concerned about their public safety have just had their worst fear realized.

We should be arming ourselves and barricading our homes at the terrifying prospect that convicted white collar criminal Conrad Black will soon be roaming the streets of Toronto and Ottawa. Black was convicted  in a Chicago courtroom on fraud charges in a convoluted case that a great many Canadian lawyers believe was unjustified and unproven. Meanwhile, self-confessed murderer and terrorist Omar Khadr should be given free reign of of land, an apology, and a huge compensation package for the inconvenience of incarceration after he murdered a US Army Medic and permanently maimed another following his surrender to American forces upon loss of a firefight in Afghanistan.

The NDP wants to keep this guy out...

At least that`s the way NDP leader Tom Mulcair seems to view things, showing that the NDP`s great new hope is no more competent than his predecessor, `Community Clinic` Jack Layton.

Conrad Black may be the personification of much that is bad about capitalism, from his raiding of the Dominion stores pension fund to the libel threats he would routinely issue to any journalist who tried to expose some of his shifty activities. But he has also made very real contributions to Canada in many ways, including raising the standard of journalism in founding The National Post, his authorship of historical works, and his often unheralded philanthropic contributions.

And the fact remains that while Conrad Black will likely continue to contribute to Canada, he most certainly has never or will never kill anyone or participate in an act of violent terrorism.

Contrast that with the unrepentant, violent Islamic terrorist Khadr, and the NDP's embrace of him, and it's easy to see how Mulcair and his party simply can't stop acting like idiots. As Libby Davies, the NDP's clownish Deputy Leader and resident 9/11 conspiracy theorist told CBC News, ""The whole situation has been quite a travesty since Day One in terms of the process that [Khadr] had to go through."

while they want to let this guy in

Most Canadians seem to think the travesty is that a murderous terrorist may soon have free reign to walk among us with the blessing of the Official Opposition.

The ridiculous example NDP leader Mulcair gave when complaining about the "double standard" applied to Black's request to return to Canada was to compare Black's case to that of a violent criminal convicted of shooting a police officer.

By failing to distinguish between a peaceful man with an admittedly mixed record and a violent, bloodthirsty criminal, the NDP isn't highlighting the hypocrisy of the Conservative government, they're reiterating their own incompetence and unsuitability to ever become the government themselves.





UPDATE: Never let it be said Tin Foil Tom has no sense of humour - with buffoonish Vancouver East MP Libby Davies at his side, Mulcair jokes, "we have the team to get the job done!"

I assume he means this job?

Bob Rae's next moves will determine whether Canada's Liberal Party sinks or swims

On of the interesting facets of the distortions of reality put forward out of political partisanship is that the politicians who speak them seem to have no idea how badly they can backfire.

Liberal leader Bob Rae's recent claim that the New Democratic Party's new supremo Thomas Mulcair is a "mini-Harper" could be just one of those watershed indicators of just how much trouble Canada's "natural governing party" is in these days.

Canada's federal Liberals used to be the New York Yankees of politics. They were in government more than any other political party in a democracy during the 20th Century. They managed that through a combination of factors, including the good luck to face weak and divided opposition parties for many years. But the one thing that spelled success for them most was their positioning themselves as centrists.

That has changed in the last few years since the defeat of Paul Martin's government in 2006 by current Prime Minister Stephen Harper. If centrism was their defining characteristics, then power was their defining motivation. It worked to the Liberals' advantage that while their opponents of the left and right were hampered by guiding ideologies and principles that prevented them from being too flexible in what they could promise voters.

The Liberals felt no such constraints and would tell audiences whatever they wanted to hear, often contradicting themselves from message to message. The justification being that they were the most capable and sensible party, therefore if the public had to be misled in order for them to be sensibly governed, so be it. That was the thought process behind outright campaign lies, like Pierre Trudeau's promise not to impose wage and price controls when he ran against Bob Stanfield, (and broke that promise within weeks of being elected)  or his forcing an election to supposedly fight Joe Clark's proposal for an excise tax on gasoline, and then, once elected,  rapidly impose a higher one than Clark had proposed. And who could forget Jean Chretien's infamous campaign lie that he would abolish the GST?

These are tough days for the Liberals. After Martin's palace coup against Chretien, they have struggled to find that centrist voice and abandoned the territory to a shrewd Conservative leadership. Somehow, the leadership of the Liberal Party has deluded itself into thinking that most Canadians despise the Harper Conservatives as much as they do. That comes across in just about everything they say, and as part of their fantasy that Harper represents the "far right wing," the Liberals have positioned themselves out of the centre into a leftist stance that has alienated them from their natural voting base.

The two Liberal leaders before Rae proved the folly of that approach, and he seems to have learned little or nothing from their failures. Stephane Dion's "Green" policies and his own "not up to the job" image led to a major defeat for the party. It wasn't just Michael Ignatieff's inability to connect with voters, but his show of taking the Liberals further to the left that resulted in their worst defeat ever, putting them for the first time in 3rd party status.

Now, by calling Mulcair a "mini-Harper," Mr. Rae seems to be flailing about positioning the Liberals to even the left of the socialist New Democrats.

So how can the Liberals correct the disastrous course on which they are currently headed?

They obviously, and with good reason, fear that Mulcair has the image of an intelligent leader who is going to move the NDP to a more centrist and for voters, more palatable position.

That may be true for Mulcair, but Bob Rae needs only to draw upon his experience as the first NDP Premier of Ontario to know that Canada's socialist party has no bench strength beyond the leadership, and that their ineptitude and radicalism are fertile grounds for attack.

Mulcair has surrounded himself with incompetents like Libby Davies, who embraces 9-11 conspiracy theorists, violent radicals, and anti-Semitic forces out to destroy Israel. He has Joe Comartin, who associates with Khomeinist hatemongers like Zafar Bangash and George Galloway. Add to the mix, Peggy Nash who shows no capacity for economic management and a host of other embarrassments, and that is what the real NDP has to offer. And this represents the top of the party. One doesn't have to go much further down the list until you get to the NDP's inept Miss Las Vegas.

If Bob Rae and the Liberal Party want to reposition themselves for Canadian voters, he needs to turn off the left turn signal and realize that he is not going to successfully rebuild the Liberals and  differentiate himself from Stephen Harper by leading a party that is more radical than that of Libby Davies.

NDP Leader Mulcair flip-flops on marijuana decriminalization

More here

It's an interesting world where NDP leader Mulcair is siding with Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper on this issue while Liberal Leader Bob Rae is on the same side as TV evangelist Pat Robertson

Failed NDP leadership candidate Brian Topp thanks media sponsor of "Israeli Apartheid Week" for all their support

Ugh..Topp was closely tied to the vermin at rabble.ca

see also: What Next for the NDP? and this for background

Mulcair won. What next for the NDP?

Leadership contests are, by their nature, extremely divisive contests. They force parties to highlight their own divisions and in the process, provide ammunition to other political parties that they can save for elections.

The NDP is conscious of that and for the most part, the leadership convention that just elected Thomas Mulcair with over 57% of the vote was a restrained process. The one candidate who faced the harshest criticism from rivals was the one who emerged victorious.

So the first order of business under such circumstances is always to consolidate the victory. The fact that it took four ballots for Mulcair to win means that he will want to shore up support. That in turn means that there will be no drastic changes in the short term. To hammer home that point, Mulcair, in his first major interview as NDP leader, told the CBC's Peter Mansbridge that he will retain Vancouver East MP Libby Davies as Deputy Leader.

The relations between Davies and Mulcair could be described as toxic. Many sources indicate the rotund Health Critic Davies despises Mulcair as a "neo-liberal" Blairite, while the Outremont MP is contemptuous of Davies, whom he considers an unintelligent, radical fanatic that is a liability to the party's ability to reach beyond its base. Davies launched vicious proxy attacks against Mulcair  through rabble.ca. That radical website is published by Davies' same-sex spouse, Kim Elliott. Mulcair is keenly aware of the rabble/Davies connection and he was the only one of the NDP leadership candidates who refused to be interviewed by that neo-Marxist online outlet.

Once Mulcair's grasp on the party tightens, look forward to Davies being consigned to the back benches within two years. The decline will be gradual, with her first being shifted out of the Deputy Leader and Health Critic positions to a lesser portfolio. Depending on her ability to refrain from a major blunder, a degree of restraint that Davies has seldom exercised for long, she may hold on to a job as Critic of a minor Ministry., But just as likely, once Davies, who frequently behaves like a petulant child in public, contradicts and criticizes the new leader, she'll be roosting up in the Opposition bleachers.

The interesting developments will be where people like Nathan Cullen end up. His surprising 3rd place performance in the leadership race means that he has party support, but despite Cullen's expressed desire to move the party to the centre, his policies are even further to the left of Jack Layton's, suggesting the bald man from British Columbia is not someone to be trusted.

The next general election isn't likely to be before late 2015, so in that time, the NDP caucus who can act like centrists and behave intelligently will be moved closer to the top. Look for more of a say from the Quebec caucus, who though fresh now, will under Mulcair's tutelage show more gravitas and leadership. Whether the NDP and its new leader have the talent and skill to give Canadians confidence in their ability to govern depends largely on whether the party purges the Davies faction and shows it is finally being run by grown-ups.

What fear does Stephen Harper share with Judy Rebick? That Libby Davies will be shut out of power under Mulcair

Frumpy and hysterical, prone to "eat the rich" and "politics of oppression" style rhetoric, Vancouver East MP Libby Davies is a walking caricature of 1970's style radical politics that has rendered the New Democratic Party unelectable and non-credible among an overwhelming majority of Canadian voters.

But the antiquated, white, middle class, neo-Marxist faction of the NDP Davies personifies is the core of the activist base that has been at the centre of the party for the last four decades. With the Quebec breakthrough the party had in the 2011 election, there may be a coming  marginalization of the radicals who continually look to re-fight old victories like abortion and health care, and to push divisive, unappealing policies like cozying up to Islamist radicals and 9-11 conspiracy theories rather than looking ahead to forming responsible economic policies.

And so that, in a nutshell, sums up the current angst faced by the old-school NDPers like Ed Broadbent and Judy Rebick, who are seeing their treasured, ineffective values threatened by the modernity represented by current leadership frontrunner Thomas Mulcair.

One aspect of the race and the potential loss of Mulcair's leadership bid is the possibility that the NDP's support in Quebec could totally collapse along with it. As Chantal Hebert wrote in an article in the Toronto Star earlier this week, no one is hoping for a Mulcair loss more than Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois, who sees Mulcair as being a force for federalism in Quebec and someone who could grow federal support in the province.

Conversely, a Mulcair loss would be seen as a slap in the face to Quebec and would almost certainly create an anti-NDP backlash there.

Interestingly, that fact was acknowledged by the ancient lefttist radical Judy Rebick in an interview on CBC Radio`s The Current a few days ago. But Rebick`s main area of concern is not for the future of the NDP as much as it is for maintaining the influence of Libby Davies` extremist brand of politics within the party.

Rebick who has been actively pushing an `anyone but Mulcair` ticket said her greatest fear is that Thomas Mulcair will shut Libby Davies out of the NDP.

Coincidentally, that is probably Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Bob Rae`s greatest fear too. Because by so doing Mulcair would make the NDP a viable, credible party in the eyes of the broader Canadian electorate.

UPDATE: Mulcair is consolidating his victory, but is it a matter of time before Davies is relegated to obscurity within the NDP to limit the damage she can do to the party?