Bruce Strachan
Right Side Up
With our next provincial election less than three years away, the pundits are already in the leadership-race mode.
There's lots of speculation about a replacement for Gordon Campbell. But, more importantly, and in an attempt to predict a 2013 election outcome, I would ask, who will lead the NDP?
To begin the political tea-leaf analysis and leap fearlessly into the breach, let me first say there will be only two contending political parties in the next provincial election: the NDP and the Liberals. The Green Party, though well intended has had its platform pretty well trumped by provincial and municipal policies such as the Liberal's carbon tax and Vancouver's bicycle lanes. Greens may tinker at the margins with tweaks to current eco-programs but will have little impact on the big picture during the next election.
Chris Delaney's provincial Conservative Party was sitting at around eight per cent in a recent poll. This is not enough to win even one seat in a provincial campaign, plus, Delaney's eight per cent no doubt comes as the result of basking in the sun shining on Bill Vander Zalm and the popular anti-HST petition. It's doubtful if Delaney can capitalize on that glow and grow the provincial Conservative Party no matter what happens in the next few years.
Again, this leaves us with the NDP and the Liberals; the only two B.C. parties with the seats, a membership base and the financial horsepower to fund a multi-million dollar run for the roses in May, 2013.
It is a given that Gordon Campbell will bow out prior to 2013. It's time for his walk in the snow. It is also a given that Surrey Mayor Diane Watts, former Liberal ministers Christy Clark and Carole Taylor, along with current Health Minister Kevin Falcon, are being courted by supporters to contend the next Liberal leadership race.
All of the above have the potential, the profile and the smarts to be serious challengers for the top job in Liberal land.
As Gordon Campbell's time draws near, every pundit in the province will be out on a whole host of various limbs with fearless predictions on who his successor will be.
For today though, a look at the NDP and its leadership plans for 2013. To begin, Leo Durocher was right when he said, "Nice guys finish last." To paraphrase Durocher, we'll note that in B.C. politics, nice guys - and nice girls too - finish last. Current NDP leader Carole James is a nice person. In the campaign TV debates of 2005 and 2009, James came across as composed, thoughtful and ... nice. Former NDP premier Mike Harcourt was also a nice guy but he mismanaged one issue and the party - ably abetted by the B.C. Federation of Labour - bounced him. And he was premier at the time.
Watch for the knives to come out on Carole James. Gordon Campbell has managed the past four months with striking incompetence. But, when I compare the current NDP leadership and critics to the headline grabbers our government faced in the late 1980s, there's no comparison.
On a daily basis we faced the pitbull line of Glen Clark, Moe Sihota and Dan Miller. Those members had the media eating out their hand. They were strong and effective.
Yet name one current NDP critic, or recent NDP-initiated story. As an example, the last time Carole James made the news in The Citizen was a Jan. 27 article on local school board funding. James' coverage since then has been anti-HST related and inevitably following a Bill Vander Zalm lead. If the Harcourt saga is any example, Carole James will be stepping down within the next two years.
It's anyone's guess who will, or can, replace Carole James prior to 2013, but the result of the next NDP leadership convention will determine our next B.C. premier.
The New Democrats have a few options. One, stay with James, or two, go for a fire-breathing socialist like Dave Barrett and hope for media hype to carry the day. The party has enough traditionalists to pull this off, but it's a long shot and could alienate middle-of-the road voters looking for a more conservative legislature.
Barrett was elected in 1972, a few years after the Woodstock Festival. In the meantime, the North American demographic has changed considerably. Woolly-headed radicals driving split-window VW vans are now grey, balding old guys in Camrys and Buicks.
Conversely, the NDP could opt for someone like Mike Harcourt, buttoned down, but with a sharper, more aggressive business-like image.
It may work.
This will all unfold over the next two years.
But whatever the outcome, New Democrats must recognize that this time out, leadership is everything and depending on whom the party can attract and elect, the 2013 provincial campaign is theirs alone to win, or lose.
