Democratic Party of Japan leadership race Jan 18 2015

[politicus]

well, the problem is that once they get into power they're completely moribund and start collapsing into factions. At least the LDP are united in the sheer determination to protect established interests. (I think the LDP are closest you will come to an undiluted small-"c" conservative party)

Weirdly enough - seeing as how terrible the DJP did last time - they aren't in a terrible place. They've jettisoned jokers and ill-placed wings. Ozawa's revolt failed. The JIP and PFG aren't going to destroy them - they haven't lost their status as the dominant opposition party. All they need now is some, err, policies.

You need to be fairly consistent to be trusted and it is hard (neigh impossible) to remain consistent if your party is so heterogeneous as DJP is.
But, this characterisation of the LDP is very 1990s. It pre-dates the rise of the moderate hawks (Koizumi/Abe) which have plenty of objections to the historic course of the LDP.

The Japan Socialists were both a dominant opposition and had plenty of policies - and opposition they remained. Their problem was being too extreme, but the DPJ's current problem is that too few voters trust them.

You need to be fairly consistent to be trusted and it is hard (neigh impossible) to remain consistent if your party is so heterogeneous as DJP is.

[politicus]

They have never been very consistent but they have won one election. The proximate cause of their current absence of trust is that they just governed badly. Maybe the consumption tax and the triple disaster were to some extent due to LDP decisions, but the DPJ did really badly in responding to them, and then there were problems that were purely their own fault, like alienating the United States.

They won that election because people were fed up with LDP. You can do that once, but to win again you need to be perceived as trustworthy and that includes an amount of consistency.