EXPECT A MINOR TRIUMPH FOR PREMIER HARD HAT
When Premier Christy Clark pulled out a win in the 2013 provincial election against widespread expectations of her defeat, she silenced many a critic for a time.
B.C. Liberal dissidents who were plotting to replace her, New Democrats recruiting staff to take over from her, pundits like me who’d written her off — all learned the perils of underestimating Premier Hard Hat.
But the Liberal victory, unexpected by most observers, set up a counter-aura of invincibility about Clark the campaigner.
The concern that the Liberals couldn’t win with Clark at the helm was replaced by the notion that with her leading the charge, they couldn’t lose.
A more realistic assessment of Campaign 2013 would recognize that in a province where pretty much every election is close, the difference between being a master of all she surveys and a destined-for-the-scrap-heap loser is about four points in the popular vote and a dozen seats in the legislature.
In the current campaign, Clark’s abilities as communicator and partisan politician remain very much in evidence. But her weaknesses are on display as well.
The loose relationship with the facts. The blame-shifting on government failures. The reluctance to clarify, apologize and set the record straight.
From members of the public, I’ve heard how her charms are wearing thin. “There she goes again, making it up as she goes along.” That sort of thing.
Privately, some Liberals confess to being weary of her policy-making on the fly and misplaced cheeriness on matters needing sober second thought.
But overall I would say that the Liberals are in denial about the mounting evidence that Clark’s negatives are trumping (if you’ll pardon the verb) her positives with some voters who supported their party in the past.
While the Liberals gloss over their leader’s weaknesses, the New Democrats make much of them in a campaign as negative as any in modern times. Overcompensating for the decision to forgo attack ads last time, the New Democrats have blamed Clark personally for everything that happened on her watch, some deaths included.
Some of this is payback for the last campaign by the Liberals. Some of it may be crafted to distract attention from the shortcomings of the NDP election platform.
John Horgan himself identified what the party needed to do to put together a credible economic program after losing four elections in a row:
“We have lost our way to speak to people in resourcebased communities; we have become dependent on particular points of view focused in the Lower Mainland. If we are going to win, we need to speak not just in a pandering way, but in a positive way to people in resource-based communities.”
Horgan said that in October 2013 when he announced that he would not be entering the race to replace departing leader Adrian Dix. He later changed his mind and was chosen leader by acclamation. But he had mixed success in turning the NDP into the party of “yes” on economic growth and job creation, particularly in the resource development sector.
As evidence that the New Democrats themselves are aware of their platform weaknesses on that score, Horgan has spent relatively little time campaigning in the North and Interior, still the mainstay of the resource economy.
For all of Horgan’s previously expressed scorn for the Lower Mainland viewpoint, he has spent much of his time campaigning in that region on standard-fare NDP promises to increase spending and taxes, some of it specified, some implied.
In Horgan’s defence, he’s had to mute earlier positions to retain support with the party’s green wing. Once elected, he might revert to form as the pro-resource development guy who once supported Site C (and still won’t say point blank that he’d kill it) and continues to support a liquefied natural gas industry, much as the notion horrifies some NDP supporters.
Matching Liberal denials about Clark’s weaknesses is the NDP reluctance to acknowledge lingering concerns about their record in the 1990s. But if things were as hunky dory back then on the economic and fiscal front as the New Democrats make out, the party would not have been dealt its worst ever showing (22 per cent of the vote and two seats) in the 2001 election.
In contrast to the New Democrats’ refusal to admit to why they were driven from office, I give you the one-sentence verdict of cabinet minister Jack Weisgerber at the end of the Social Credit era: “We got what we deserved.”
Denials notwithstanding, Green Leader Andrew Weaver is making a strong pitch to capitalize on voter fatigue with both major parties.
The New Democrats seem most worried about that prospect, given their strident attacks on the Greens and Weaver himself. But I expect he will also attract votes from disenchanted Liberals, never mind that his tax-and-spend intentions ($4 billion in both instances) greatly exceed those announced by the NDP.
As to how all this will play out Tuesday, I would start by noting that if I’d been right about where things were headed four years ago, the premier running for re-election would be Adrian Dix.
Having said that, I believe the most likely outcome this time is a reduced Liberal majority with a smaller chance of no party winning a majority for the first time since 1952. And having said that, I propose to leave the matter in the hands of the voters, where it belongs.
We have lost our way to speak to people in resource-based communities; we have become dependent on particular points of view focused in the Lower Mainland. JOHN HORGAN, speaking in October 2013