Who to take to the Dance, BC Style

BC Politics have become the most deadly in the country again.  I can recall the days of the Bennett - Barrett battles that were down right vicious.  Now its the political parties doing it to themselves.  First the BC LibCONs telling General Campbell it was time to get out of town or be shot, then it was the BC New Democrats. 

In something just short of an outright assassination, one third of the BC NDP caucus did the same thing to Carole James.  James a consensus kind of leader, you know the kind, they actually do things when people will be honest at the table.  The trouble with consensus leadership is that you have to have most of the players willing to play that game.  The voters in BC were not ready for that, didn't play the game in two elections and the grumbling inside the NDP grew. 

There also seems to be some kind of idea floating out there that James was brought down by rogue MLAs.  True some 12 or 13 MLAs did lend their name and a few words to the already leaning NDP election tower.  At the same time you did not see the other 25 NDP MLA's pushing the other way to keep the tower from falling, now did you.

Carole James was treated very badly by the bakers dozen.  She should have been given a nicer exit, one befitting her example.  Then maybe she wasn't ready to go...?

What NDP insiders saw coming, which of course most people were ignoring, was that once Campbell pulled the plug, the anti-Campbell polls would turn the BC LibCONS around.  A new leader would distance themselves from the HST, heck the new leader may even eliminate it before the referendum date. 

BC politics would then have its regular election, with the majority of people now willing to give the LibCON Premier a fair chance to change things and right the ship.  A disaster for the NDP in the making.  As bad a government as the BC LibCONS have been, it was the HST that sunk Campbell.  Not BC Rail scandals, nor lying budgets, or cost overruns, big deficits, or a host of other major failures.  It was the HST. 

One final point to this is the lack of large numbers of voices decrying what happened.  There are some, but not what you would expect from a group that was truly outraged by the actions of a bakers dozen. The choice for the NDP was to go into an election against the brand spanking new LibCON Premier with the person that you took to the dance contest twice and lost.  It was that simple.