But party leader Doer is Romanow Mark II
Manitoba is the other Prairie province going to the polls this month. Here the NDP, led by Gary Doer, is running neck and neck with the over-ripe Tory government of Gary Filmon.
Filmon is trying for his fourth term as premier.
By all rights the NDP should be a shoe-in. Filmon's government has faced an election rigging scandal after they attempted to run so-called "independent" native candidates in the 1995 election to split the NDP vote.
The Mannin inquiry which was appointed to look into the operation found that a number of laws were broken. Yet no-one ever went to jail.
Filmon is also hated in much of rural Manitoba for his callous treatment of people suffering as a result of a massive flood in 1997.
And the Tories have presided over 11 years of cutbacks and attacks on workers and the poor.
The Tory cuts led to a growth in misery and alienation perhaps most clearly demonstrated by the fact that Manitoba is one of the top three provinces in Canada for child poverty.
And it can be seen in the growth of street gangs in Winnipeg as young people, without hope of a future, turn to crime.
Unfortunately the NDP has not provided anything like an alternative to the Tories. They even voted for the Tories' last budget in the spring.
The lion's share of NDP attacks on the Tories during this campaign have been because they are making high spending promises. Sadly they are being followed in this by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and other social justice organizations.
The promises that the NDP does make are pathetically small and are subordinate to the whims of the market.
For healthcare the NDP has promised a measly $15 million in new funding -- the other reforms will be based upon shifting already existing resources.
The Tories increased healthcare funding in the last budget by $194 million.
As Gary Filmon noted: "If Doer thinks we are 'out of touch' on health care, why did he vote for our budget?"
Public school funding increases will be tied to the growth of the economy -- which implies that if growth stalls or inflation rises higher than growth that education funding will face real cuts.
What is clear is that "Today's NDP", as Doer has renamed the party, stands for Roy Romanow style government.
The desire to distance the party from any connection to the labour movement or working people is made clear by their platform item calling for disallowing business or union contributions to political parties.
What is not clear is that this tactic will get the NDP elected. Trying to act like another party of business blew up in the faces of the NDP in Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Like Nova Scotia, Gary Doer may yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
If the NDP loses, the party leadership will claim that it was because they hadn't moved far enough to the right. If they win the same leadership will claim that it was because they had moved to the right and adopted Blairism. They are not to be trusted.
As with Saskatchewan, working people should vote for the NDP, the only party based upon the unions and not the corporations.
But just as in Saskatchewan, whether facing Doer or Filmon, workers will need militancy and solidarity to win any reforms.