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Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn have laid waste to the idea that, in politics, young and sunny always beats out old and angry. The U.S. Democratic presidential contender and the British Labour Leader are sensations among millennials craving a revolution of their very own.

Yes, Mr. Sanders and Mr. Corbyn have very little chance of ever leading their respective countries. But they have drawn a new generation of budding activists into leftist politics and have infused their parties with the grassroots enthusiasm on which revolutions feed.

Tom Mulcair may be old(ish) and angry, but he is no Bernie Sanders. Everyone knows what Mr. Sanders is angry about. His rage is fuelled by the rich billionaires who have "rigged" the system, bought elections, out- sourced jobs and created the biggest wealth gap since the Depression.

What makes Angry Tom run? It's always been a bit of mystery, frankly. The New Democratic Party Leader is not the revolutionary type, preferring balanced budgets and refusing to raise taxes on the rich.

Maybe he thinks there are better ways to fight inequality. But he has never succeeded in articulating an agenda for economic and social justice that makes Dippers swoon.

He now faces his Alamo in Edmonton. In a few weeks, party members will determine whether Mr. Mulcair stays or goes following a leadership review at their convention in the Alberta capital. The timing is awful for Mr. Mulcair. The federal NDP is so low in opinion polls it might not even attain official party status in the House of Commons if a first-past-the-post election were held soon.

Few seem to be clamouring for Mr. Mulcair to stay on. Dippers don't typically dump their leaders, but a few discontented voices have gone public to call for Mr. Mulcair's head. "Because he's got such an overbearing personality and the party is desperately in need of renewal," says former Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan. A riding association head in Montreal, Alain Charbonneau, put it this way: "He was elected, or hired, because he was the one that was supposed to be able to win. And he did not win. He lost terribly. And he came across flat."

Electability was supposed to be Mr. Mulcair's calling card. He would never have beat Brian Topp, the behind-the-scenes party stalwart who bled orange, for the leadership in 2012 if party members had put their principles before the quest for power. You couldn't blame them, really.

The NDP had a historic opportunity to present itself as a government-in-waiting. For a time, Mr. Mulcair seemed to be delivering on that promise. Then it all went wrong.

By its own admission, the NDP offered "cautious change" instead of "real change" during last fall's election campaign. Instead of leveraging that "overbearing personality" to persuade progressive Canadians he would fight for their causes, Angry Tom became Smiling Tom and looked as conservative as the Conservatives. Mr. Mulcair, as a politician, always had more in common with Stephen Harper, anyway.

After the election, Mr. Mulcair offered his mea culpa, sort of. He blamed his principled stand on the niqab issue for the party's dramatic 20-percentage-point drop in Quebec opinion polls. Yet, most of those defectors went to the Liberals, whose leader had the same position on the Muslim veil.

It's hard to see how Mr. Mulcair can differentiate himself on the left, now. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has eclipsed him as the sunny superhero of Canadian progressives. Yes, the Liberals will soon be up to their old ways (if they aren't already, as their triangulating over Saudi arms sales suggests), governing from the centre while talking up a progressive storm. But Mr. Mulcair would face a credibility gap if he tried to become a Corbyn now. How believable could he be?

Mr. Mulcair could seize on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Opposition to TPP unites NDPers. But the protectionist wave sweeping U.S. politics may spare the Trudeau government from ever having to take a clear position on the deal, depriving Mr. Mulcair of a cause to fight for.

It would be premature to call Mr. Mulcair toast. Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath faced similar criticisms from the base, including Mr. Ryan, after tacking to the centre, without success, during the 2014 provincial election. She handily survived a subsequent leadership review.

Mr. Mulcair, too, may survive. The question facing New Democrats is: "What for?"

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