The BC By-Elections 2012: The Disintegrating Christy Clark in Hiding, Her Party’s Broken Message Box and the BC Conservatives May Lose, But Win

I was not surprised last night, to hear that the Premier wouldn’t be in either Port Moody or Chilliwack this evening.

This is typical of what’s happening with the rapidly disintegrating Christy Clark, who you will note, becomes more and more absent the more her government crumbles around her.

This isn’t leadership or strategy, it’s cowardice and failure.

But an abrogation of duty? WHERE ARE ALL OF YOU IN THE MAINSTREAM PRESS? Where are all you whiners that constantly harp about the criticisms leveled against you? It’s not a big story that the Premier has chosen to hide?

Pathetic. It’s the biggest story of these by-elections, thus far, meanwhile the top story is that the Canucks avoided the inevitable for another game. That’s the top news?! Oh, and Jim Rome tore a strip off Roberto Luongo this morning.

I actually thought Luongo played his best clutch game of the season last night.

From the bench.

But I digress.

The Premier has an obligation to be in either constituency and take the results as they come. She knows her party will lose both. She knows much of the dissatisfaction begins and ends with her. Instead of facing the music, she’s content to hide in the hallway closet, while her colleagues take the heat and work the message box.

This is leadership? This is courage under fire?

Beyond pathetic.

Meanwhile, I’ve had some time overnight to think again about what might constitute a disaster for any of the three parties.

NDP: If they lost both, which we know isn’t likely, as Trasolini is a lock in Port Moody and Gwen O’Mahoney has been coming on very strongly in Chilliwack. Although, I strongly advise you all to watch Christine Clarke in Port Moody. She will do much better than most think and surely place second. If she wasn’t running against Trasolini, she’d beat Dennis Marsden, hands down.

BC LIBERALS: Oh, how many ways do you want disaster scenarios for this sordid, motley crew of pretenders and failures? Any loss is a bad thing. However, if they fall behind the Conservatives in both, it’s the worst possible scenario. It means the vote-splitting argument is finished for them.

Parenthetically, I am perplexed by the idiotic and ARROGANT messaging coming from BC Liberal candidate Laurie Throness in Chilliwack. This is a chap who survived the bloodsport of Ottawa? HOW?!?!?!?! He claims that the Chilliwack contest is only between him and the BCNDP’s Gwen O’Mahoney. Brilliant, so I’ve received over two dozen emails this morning alone, from folks telling me that they were on the fence (between the Conservatives and Liberals) but will now vote for the BC Conservatives in Chilliwack-Hope as a result of Throness’ arrogance. Unbelievable that he would receive such incredibly stupid advice and not be intelligent enough to immediately dismiss it.

In addition, his own comments belie the vote-splitting argument he and his Premier have been giving us since these by-elections were called! If it’s just between Liberals and NDPers, then there can’t be any vote splitting between Liberals and Conservatives, right?

Incredible that the BC Liberal message box is so swiftly broken to shattered….

Conservatives: I think the best possible scenario tonight for the Cummins crew, would be to come second in both Chilliwack and Port Moody. The latter is a given (a second in PM), but if John Martin fails in Chilliwack and comes second, it still wipes out the notion that this government has any legs left and gives the Conservatives a chance to clean out the dead wood in the backroom–holding them back from making more gains. Their WORST possible result would be to place third in both. If that happens, they MUST clean house and understand that a strategy around being an effective third option has to go well-beyond  resting on the limited laurels of being mostly a protest vote against the BC Liberals.

It’s election day! And remember the Clark-Marrisen motto: Vote early and vote often!

They only cheat when they can’t win…let’s see what happens.

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I’ll be back tomorrow with a detailed analysis of both by-elections and some interviews with many of the players and participants.

Hey Christy…do you hear the drums getting louder…?