So as the summer of 2013 races by and fall encroaches on our good times,what will become of Adrian Dix?
Will he stay,will he go or will he be pushed out?
Who Knows? For one thing the BCNDP has a habit of cannibalizing their own, just ask Carol James.
Already there are sounds he will be pushed out.
I spent a bit of time with Adrian when the BC Conservatives were working on the Coast Guard file back last spring.
I left with the impression he was too nice a guy for the role that was before him.
The election itself bore that out.
They should have attacked the BC Liberals rotten record of government and scandals.
They didn’t and it cost them an election they should have won.
My take: If they want to get anywhere four years hence they need to move swiftly to change their leadership without a public head-chopping.
Dix should do the right thing and go of his own free will.. This will keep the party united and allow them to change leaders quickly.
Another head chopping ala James will be nasty and I think mortally wound the party.
Why the short time frame for a change?
1) Four years goes by fast and they need to rebuild more than just the political leadership. Their executive must go as well.
2) The Greens will not sit idly by while the NDP drags their feet and will pick up support on the left.
3) The federal riding changes will be announced in a few short months and if you believe as I do that the BCNDP are merely the West-coast wing of the Federal NDP than you have to know that the next two years will preoccupy them with federal nomination battles. This will eat into their provincial rebuilding in a big way.
4) The provincial party could lose potential leadership candidates to those aforementioned nomination battles.
Failure to act now means they will limp into the 2017 BC Provincial election with nothing new to offer.
They would open their flank to the Greens and the BC Conservatives, with the possibility that not only would they lose the 2017 election but might not even form the opposition.
This would be a disaster they would probably not recover from.