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KINSELLA: NDP Leader Avi Lewis has what it takes

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KINSELLA: NDP Leader Avi Lewis has what it takes

Newly elected 58-year-old is smart, strategic and personable as he enters the federal fray

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Years ago, back when CBC TV still valued debate, I used to appear on a panel show called Counterspin. Its host was Avi Lewis.

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Counterspin was on every day, and it had some other hosts, but I don’t remember any of them. I remember Avi, though.

KINSELLA: NDP Leader Avi Lewis has what it takes Back to video

We’d sit around an elevated table and debate stuff. Usually, we’d yap about the news of the day, from the Left or the Right or whatever. I don’t remember any of that, either.

He was really, really smart. He was charming. He kept the discussion going, and he knew how to make us feel comfortable. He’d challenge us and all that, but he wasn’t a jerk. Even though we all knew he was a New Democrat — his father and grandfather had been leaders of different New Democratic parties — Avi didn’t jam copies of Das Kapital down our throats.

And he was really quick on his feet. Sometimes, I’d tease him. Once, I looked at him and said: “You’re an angry young man.”

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Without pause, deadpan, Avi said: “I’m not young.” CBC turned that exchange into a commercial.

Don’t underestimate Avi

Anyway, this all to say that I think people are really underestimating Avi Lewis. Since his party’s leadership convention in Winnipeg, the NDP has been the butt of many jokes. There have been lots of columns and podcasts pronouncing the NDP as dead as a DoDo.

There have been clips of NDP bouncing around the Internet, yes, which strongly recall the bar scene in Star Wars, but weirder. The NDP convention was like this giant gathering of the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, except with a bunch of humourless people completely incapable of self-awareness or laughter. At the end, they waved around a Palestinian flag, not Canada’s. Figures.

So, because the NDP convention was basically a televised three-ring circus, a lot of people are assuming that Avi Lewis is crazy or stupid. They’re wrong. He isn’t. And I think there’s three reasons why he needs to be taken seriously.

First, he grew up in family of political people with gigantic brains. His dad, Stephen — who sadly passed away a couple days after his son was elected leader — is widely regarded by politicos of all stripes as one of the best orators we’ve ever had. His parents deeply loved each other, and it showed. They may have been Lefties, but they were impressive people and an impressive family.

So, Avi grew up in politics and public service, and he obviously knows a thing or two about winning. He got more media coverage than anyone else in the leadership race. He raised more money than all of the other contestants put together. And he won, big time, on the first ballot. That doesn’t happen with political amateurs.

Two, he has room to grow. Since the return of Cheeto Benito down South, the world has gone crazy. It’s upended politics. Pierre Poilievre lost an election that had been in the bag, because he reminded voters of Donald Trump. Mark Carney won because he didn’t.

But Carney isn’t a liberal Liberal. He’s that uniquely Canadian oxymoron, a Progressive Conservative. Some days, he’s a plain old Conservative. He has yanked the Liberal Party back to the centre and — some New Democrats say — right into Poilievre’s territory.

That’s what Canadians wanted, obviously. But it has created huge, huge opportunity for Avi Lewis. For voters who are shopping for a progressive voice — and Zohran Madani’s unashamedly socialist triumph in the New York City mayoral race showed that they are, in the far-Right Trump era — Lewis is it. He is going to benefit from Carney’s conservatism. Guaranteed.

Three, and as I said up above: he’s a nice guy. He’s likeable in a way that Carney and Poilievre just aren’t. He’s more media-savvy than them, too. And he’s a natural on TV, which matters more than anything in politics.

Are his positions on Zionism and Judaism repellant? Yes. But, as a man born Jewish, it’ll be pretty hard to brand him as an antisemite. Are his stated views on the economy nuttier than squirrel poop? Of course. But my suspicion is that Lewis took the sage advice of Richard Nixon, no less, during the leadership race: run as far as possible away from the centre to get the nomination — and, when you get it, run back. He’ll run back.

Smart, strategic, personable, political: Avi Lewis has got the makings of a winner.

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