Clark has not figured out that in the upcoming election the main issue has already been defined for her.
It will not be about the economy nor will it be directly about the HST.
Thinking the election will be about the economy shows Clark’s disconnect with the voters and explains why she is so far behind in the polls.
THIS ELECTION WILL BE ABOUT HONESTY AND INTEGRITY something her party is lacking severely .
It will be a referendum on a combination of things including but not limited to HST, BC Rail, Leadership etc. ( Probably by then you can throw in the sale of the Liquor Distribution branch as a sleazy way to balance the budget).
Going into an election with Clark as your leader would be akin to going into the battle of Little Big Horn and putting all your money on General George Armstrong Custer.
We all know how that turned out.
Seems the MSM is also starting to think a leadership change may occur as evidenced in the Times Colonist yesterday.
Make no mistake about it, With Clark as leader the Liberals will get trounced at the ballot box.
You know it, I know it and more importantly the BC Liberals know it!
Rick Peterson, nomination candidate for the BC Conservatives in Vanouver-Quilchena, steps in this morning to explain the myth of vote splitting in BC.This originally appeared in the Vancouver Sun. Here is the piece in it’s entirety!
On Tuesday, B.C. Conservative leader John Cummins addressed a sellout crowd from the business community at a major fundraising luncheon in downtown Vancouver. I’d like to follow up with a look at the vote-splitting argument that the B.C. Liberals are flinging about in the business community with increasing desperation as polling results seem to indicate a death-spiral for their party in this province.
This vote-splitting thesis is, in reality, a “canard” — a false report that is deliberately misleading.
Purveyors of this myth love to point to 1996 and the vote split that resulted in the provincial NDP victory — keeping in mind that the NDP retained power that year, and didn’t come from opposition.
It’s a convenient argument, but a closer look shows that the those orchestrating this canard are using the wrong election to draw parallels and are also historically incorrect in using 1996 as an analogy.
The 1991 provincial election is best comparable to the one upcoming in May next year because both feature a long-in-the-tooth, very unpopular, crumbling governing party. The incumbent 1991 Socreds and today’s Liberals both tossed out old leaders and exchanged them for untried and overwhelmed replacements (Rita Johnson in ’91 and Christy Clark today) in a search for renewal. In both cases the parties slumped further.
Like the 1991 campaign, today’s features a rising opposition NDP that had not been in power for well over a decade, and therefore ripe for taking advantage of voter amnesia. Both periods also feature a resurgent and well-organized third party, with a long respected history in the province, which has not governed or elected MLA’s in decades.
In 1991, Gordon Wilson was leading the B.C. Liberals. The party had been in the political wilderness for ages, had not elected an MLA since 1975 and had not formed government since 1941. (Sound familiar? B.C. Conservatives have not governed since 1933.)
Just as today, in 1991 voters were leaving the governing party and were looking for alternatives. Just as today the coalition was failing because the party holding that alliance was floundering.
On the televised debates in 1991, Gordon Wilson scored a major blow when he interrupted Rita Johnson and Mike Harcourt and said, “This is why nothing gets done in Victoria.” It was a moment many of us remember. The coalition began to coalesce again, to a degree, around Gordon Wilson and the B.C. Liberals.
However, in the following general election, latent Socred voters handed the election to the NDP. The Socreds were decimated, receiving 351,000 votes and only seven seats.
The B.C. Liberals came from nowhere, winning 17 seats and 486,000 votes. The NDP won 51 seats and a majority with only 110,000 more votes than the B.C. Liberals.
The problem was that not enough voters realized, early enough, that the coalition needed to coalesce under the new B.C. Liberal tent. They didn’t realize until it was too late that the old regime was long gone.
The 1996 election, which simply kept the NDP in power, offered completely different dynamics.
By that point Gordon Wilson had lost an internal race and Gordon Campbell had taken over the B.C. Liberals. A group of marginalized and bitter Socreds, who had been defeated badly in the 1991 election, instead of joining the growing coalition, migrated to the B.C. Reform Party.
At the same time, another defeated and disgruntled politician, Gordon Wilson, started the Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA).
In the subsequent election, the combination of votes siphoned off to these two parties (nine per cent for Reform and six per cent for the PDA) allowed the NDP to remain in power.
In both 1991 and 1996 it was those who still believed in the old coalition tent that handed the election, and the province, to the NDP. It was not those who understood that a new tent was required where everyone needed to regroup.
So history and mathematics are both providing us guidance and giving us the data needed not to make the same mistake twice. Unlike 1991 when the NDP were at 39 per cent in the polls, they are now at 50 per cent.
The danger is clear and present. A new free enterprise coalition will be formed sooner or later in B.C., and history tells us it will not take place under the fading B.C. Liberals.
The clear alternative is the Conservatives.
It’s only a question of when it happens. If free enterprise supporters look at history, and ignore the quacking of the vote-splitting canards, they will see that this needs to happen before next May — not after.
The BC Liberals have always talked and acted like they are above everybody else.
They try to be smug and convey to people that they are better.
Recently, potential candidate Terry Becker was interviewed by on-line publication Pitt Meadows today
What conveyed that my you know what doesn’t stink , the I am better and above you attitude so prevalent with the BC Liberals and their candidates is this ” Personally, I do not shop at Walmart. I believe that this kind of business does not help our community.”
What a dope!
Walmart not only creates jobs in the community but Terry might be surprised to know a lot of people that shop and work there ACTUALLY VOTE!
Not the type to vote for her of course because , well, she is too good to shop there.
In fact Walmart shoppers and workers everywhere in BC ought to pay heed: The BC Liberals don’t like you!
So Terry if you run for the nomination ( If time allows and you are not busy tweeting from BC Liberal golf tournaments) and the BC Liberal members are dumb enough to vote for you, you deserve what you will get at the ballot box, namely a third or fourth place finish and a hasty exit from politics.
Have we not had our fill of this type of political wanna be?
Even Dalton McGuinty is more politically astute than Clark.
Last year in an election campaign that was very close he took advantage of the Goderich tornado to give that area some badly needed help.He went on to win the election,the optics of this were that good.
You would have thought Christy ( Miss Photo-Op) Clark would have been front and center outside the Science Center renewing the contract or at least in a canoe in the Okanogan region offering help.
You would have thought these two would have been no-brainers for the family first agenda.
Not only that but since this is not due to finish until late 2013 they are leaving a hand grenade without the pin for the NDP to deal with.( The dippers are on record as being against this issue which will put them on course for a head on collision with the Harper government should the proposal get “green lighted”)
Before you think I feel bad for the NDP I don’t.
I just think the Clark Government who claims to have a families first agenda,should have at least had some reports or queries to file by the January deadline.
Let’s face it, the Premier is on record saying she will sit squarely on the fence until she sees the results of the study before going one way or another on the issue.
So why not take advantage of the opportunity and at least ask the questions that concern YOU?
Why miss the deadlines Premier?
Better yet if you care so much about the result why not be a government participant in the study?
To me the answer is obvious: The results of the proposal hearing will be released after the election and they know they are going to lose so they don’t care!
