Bob Rae and the Ontario byelections

A New Democrat friend of mine who spent some time working on NDP campaigns in Ontario was strongly pulling for Bob Rae to win the Liberals' federal leadership race. His reasoning was that Rae had done such damage to the NDP brand in Ontario that the only way back from that would be for Rae to become cemented in the public consciousness as belonging to another party. I had no opinion on whether or not my friend was right, but his theory amused me, mostly because it ran so counter to the worries I was hearing from other New Democrats about Rae, along the lines of: "if he wins, then we're doomed, doomed!"

Rae didn't win, of course, so it was a moot point. But it was an idea that kept gnawing on my thoughts as I read this Murray Campbell column about how NDP gains in the recent Parkdale-High Park and York South-Weston byelections show that the Ontario provincial Liberals are "lagging." He dubs the Ontario NDP "resurgent" and with the help from some long-clichéd metaphors, says that they're now "out of the penalty box after nearly a decade in the wilderness." So assuming that Campbell is right to make pronouncements about the Ontario NDP's strength based on two byelections, I have to wonder whether my friend may have been right after all. I mean, what would confuse an old-time Ontario Rae-hater more than trying to trot out the old "but Bob Rae ruined our lives!!!" arguments against the NDP...and then remembering?