04.20.2012 08:08 AM

How’s that strategy of playing footsie with Harper working out for you, Premier Clark?

Not too good, I think, but perhaps you have a different take.

6 Comments

  1. smelter rat says:

    I think Jerry was referring to the BC Liberals.

  2. Tim says:

    I don’t envy Christie Clark.

    I think Premier Clark got a rather large sized headache resulting from the actions of John Cummings, similar to the one Alison Redford caught from Danielle Smith. I’m not sure what she was supposed to do. Her choice was to try and hold her old coalition together or go after soft progressive votes. She chose Door #1.

    Allison Redford has gone with Door #2.

    There’s a good chance neither is going to be Premier for much longer. Would going in the opposite direction have changed things for either of them?

  3. dave says:

    BC teachers in their beef with Clark et al voted 73% to protest Act 22, including withdrawal from extra currics. (school boards and senior ed biz administrators – and there are a lot of them- are all over the media with their usual ‘The kids! the kids!)Grad ceremonies will be affected.
    This is an added pr problem for BC Libs government.

  4. frmr disgruntled Con now Happy Lib says:

    Disappointed, but happy the BC Conservatives led by uber tool John Cummins were shut out…..which suprised me, given that Chilliwack is part of the Fraser Valley Bible Belt……

    If I was Ms. Clark, I would lance the festering boil of the BC Teachers stike……the only person she is hurting is herself……Carole Taylor, one time BC Finance Minister, was able to achieve labour peace by signing up a 100% of the public service workers contracts before they were to expire, and she was looked upon as a hero for doing so…..

    Ms. Clark also needs to start listening to her MLA’s, instead of her paid advisors…..there is rebellion in the ranks, and a lot of it stems from the sitting members feeling as if they are being ignored…….

    • Jason Hickman says:

      there is rebellion in the ranks, and a lot of it stems from the sitting members feeling as if they are being ignored

      If memory serves, she only had one MLA supporter during her leadership run, so it’s not like she had a deep base of goodwill to begin with.

      As to Warren’s larger point: one riding went NDP by >50%, but in the other one, the split between the BC Liberals and the BC Conservatives appears to have been a major factor. The problem isn’t that the premier is cozying up to the PM, it’s that enough small-c conservatives have decided that Clark is too left-of-centre for their taste, and say what you will about Cummings, he’s been able to bring the BCCP back from the minor-party fringes to the point where they’ll probably get more votes than the Greens* in BC, if not the BCLP.

      But while that is clearly an important factor, let’s remember that most voters don’t slot themselves into narrow left-right-or-centre slots. The BC Libs have been in office since ’01. I’d venture a guess that more voters are motivated by “Time For a Change” than by whether Clark has recruited former PMO types to her inner circle. Also, the BCNDP has continued to rehab itself, politically, from where it was in ’01, to the point where it’s considered “safe” by enough of the time-for-a-change voters.

      *Speaking of which, I wonder why the Greens didn’t even have a candidate in either riding? For years, the GPBC has been the strongest Green provincial party in Canada, to the point where their leaders took part in election leaders’ debates years before Liz May was invited, but they didn’t even have names on the ballot in either race.

  5. Robbie says:

    Warren, would you advise a provincial party leader or a sitting Premier to stay home election night, and not attend their candidate’s office-even if they should lose the seat? What kind of message does that send to the candidate, the volunteers and campaign workers?

    Speaking of Conservatives, Chuck Strahl, current lobbyist and former Conservative stalwart, was the campaign chair for BC Liberals’ Laurie Throness. They had access to Conservative membership lists and truckloads of resources both on the ground and in the bank. Yet, despite all that, there was only a 6% difference (31-25) between him and John Martin, the BC Conservative candidate who had 1/5th the amount of money and far fewer workers on the ground.

    http://www.lauriethroness.ca/in-the-news/

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