Jack Layton says he’s applying for Stephen Harper’s job. This is a bold statement from a federal party whose meagre 29-seat showing in the last election was considered a landmark victory. Such an ambitious move is merely the culmination of an ongoing power play to position Layton and the NDP as Serious Contenders. The move seems to be gaining traction among the “ABC” (Anything But Conservative) contingent as anti-Harperists look for a strong leader — not one who’s being undermined by his own party. Hell, Layton is running a colse second only to the PM himself when it comes to recent popularity polls, and some polls show they may be poised to surpass the Liberals, as this screaming headline from earlier this week pointed out.

But this new direction (a direction, period) for the NDP has some of the leftist establishment stressing their displeasure as the orange and green fades to red — and "red" in any communist sense, either. As detailed in James Laxer’s cover story in this month’s This Magazine, it seems that the NDP are leaning in a little too close to Liberal territory in order to solidify their presence in federal politics.

Already, Layton is touting the fact that it was the NDP and not the Liberals who consistently voted against Stephen Harper’s backward-thinking policies during the Conservatives’ brief minority rule. Of course, with the Liberals abstaining from every confidence vote, the NDP “nays” were of little consequence. But the bottom line is that the NDP, for once, look far better on paper than their slightly-more-centre-of-left competition. And what should be an even more disturbing prospect for Laxer and his ilk is that the best way for the NDP to enable a serious power shift may be to start acting like the Reform Party circa 1993.

Well, not exactly. But remember that first post-Mulroney election when Kim Campbell’s Conservatives went down like a lead zeppelin? In an all out political rout, they lost 167 seats and their official party status as the western Canadian, über-right wing Reform Party side-saddled in on a platform that would give even Stephen Harper pause (oh wait, he was in that party). In any case, a similar scenario involving the Liberals would be extremely helpful to the NDP. And since defeating the current government against painfully daunting odds is a doubtful prospect, focusing on the runner-up prize package might be the stepping stone to a parliamentary-leading future.

But before we get too far into wild speculation, let’s look at just what the NDP are up to that’s been disquieting the old guard so. Laxer argues that under Layton’s leadership the party espouses “too great a preoccupation with parliament and too little connectedness to what is happening in our society” — that they are sacrificing party principles to gain seats. This argument seems to assume that the NDP should, by definition, be an unpopular party. But the indie rock equation of popular = uncool simply doesn’t hold true for politics. The whole point of a political party is to gain votes — to adapt your policy to fit the society in order to convince people that you are right. Otherwise, you are basically a protest movement.

To think that, after 75 years in this greasy game of federal politics, the former CCF should be striving to overthrow the capitalist system with radical idealism is rather juvenile. It goes against that old adage about joining the establishment once you’re 35. Besides, there’s a new protest party in town, and even they are making headway into legitimate representation — in the televised debates anyway.

Would it really be such a terrible tragedy for the NDP to replace the Liberals as the other major party? This substitution worked in Britain about 90 years ago. Consequently, the Liberals (now called Liberal Democrats) rate comparably to the NDP of elections past. The British Labour Party, on the other hand, has consistently assumed power and even inspired one of the greatest British rock songs of the 1960s (The Beatles’ “Taxman”).

If the Conservatives’ lead remains unshaken and their majority rule becomes an imminent possibility, this may be an opportunity for voters to forgo the traditional strategic Liberal support and start betting on the underdog. Maybe one day yet we’ll hear Gord Downie name-dropping Layton in an enigmatic tune about taxation.