Sustaining the NDP’s momentum without Jack Layton just about impossible

In the coming days and weeks, New Democrats will have to move forward and decide how to build on Jack Layton's legacy.

It won't be easy.

Probably more so than any other party, the federal New Democrats' success was because of the tireless efforts of their leader.

For many Canadians, Jack Layton was the NDP.

Andrew Cohen, a professor of journalism at Carleton University, says this was particularly so in Quebec, where the party had no history or organization.

"The smiling, folksy Jack was all Quebecers knew when they voted, en masse, to elect 59 New Democrats," he wrote in Tuesday's Ottawa Citizen

"They didn't choose Ruth Ellen Brosseau and members of the NDP Club at McGill University because they knew them. They trusted "Le Bon Jack" and their affection carried the NDP juggernaut in Quebec."

It's expected that popular Quebec MP Thomas Mulcair will run to replace Layton.

Mulcair, however, has little profile in English Canada and may lack some, let's call it, political sophistication.

Many will recall Mulcair's untimely comments to CBC News about his doubts the U.S. really had photos of Osama bin Laden's body.

Warren Kinsella, a columnist for the Toronto Sun and a Liberal blogger, says regardless of who New Democrats choose as their new leader, the party has reached its peak.

"For (Layton's) NDP - because it was his NDP - sad and bad times lay ahead," he wrote.

"There is no possibility, none, that they can ever expect to maintain what they achieved with Jack Layton."

Kinsella, a long-time proponent of a Liberal/NDP merger, also suggests now, more than ever, "progressives need to come together for the good of Canadian democracy."

The New Democratic Party is now without the man who guided it to its biggest success in Canadian history.

It didn't just lose its leader, however, it lost its identity.

(CP Photo)