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With a caucus earning scrutiny for its rookies, union leaders and far-left activists, the premier-designate now faces enormous uncertainty and skepticism as she takes control of an economy on the brink. But the party has taken pains to tone the leftist rhetoric down to an Alberta-friendly decibel, MLA Rod Loyola’s open support for Hugo Chavez aside.

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The degree to which Rae’s government defines New Democrats is revealing. Not only for a regional bias which discounts longer-serving, more successful NDP governments in the west. But also for showing how much New Democrats are branded in no small part by what Liberals say they believe today.

Let me illustrate, using Rae’s own rationale for why he left the NDP, along with Justin Trudeau’s new tax plank.

Recall the 2006 Liberal leadership convention. Rae was a candidate and his speech alluded to his record as Ontario’s premier. As if to explain how grown-ups could now trust him with the books, he reassured everyone that he’d learned a thing or two about fiscal responsibility since. Many at the time believed old business cycles were passé, so it must have seemed safe to say.

There’s no denying Rae ran up deficits. There’s also no denying he took office as the world’s economy was slumping, exacerbated in Ontario by the then-new free trade agreement’s impact on manufacturing. So he used public spending to counter the harm — just as Stephen Harper later did, as urged by Liberals, when old business cycles turned out not to be dead, after all, and the Great Recession began.