Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Post Campbell Era

A bit more than a day later and here is some things that I have figured or seen

1) Recall campaigns are in much more serious trouble - Sacha Peter pointed this out, I can not take credit.  As long as the Liberal leadership race is underway, it is going to be hard to get the broad support needed to succeed.   In fact the leaders would be well advised to suspend things till the spring when it becomes clear who will lead the Liberals.   It is also simply a smart tactical thing for them to do because getting recalls going in the next ten weeks only sets you up for failure due to the time year.

2) No one has a leadership campaign nicely under warps ready to roll.    I would not expect anyone to announce they are running for awhile, but I would expect to see some evidence of behind the scenes maneuvering to get narrative started for a run for the leadership.

3) The public seems to want someone as leader that is not part of the current caucus in Victoria.   I am not sure that the MLAs with the leadership aspirations will be able to see the bigger picture for the party.

4) The NDP's long time moniker for the government "The Campbell Liberals" is gone and leaving them without the ready narrative to take on the government.   Putting it all on the leader leaves you weak as an opposition when that person quits.  

If the Liberals choose a leader from outside of the current MLAs, and the NDP continues to operate without any real agenda of government expressed, there is a danger the NDP will be without any effective election campaign in 2013.

5) With a new leader the Liberals can back down from the HST and remove the biggest source of opposition to the government.

6) All provincial polling will be irrelevant till the new Liberal leader is in place for some months.  For political junkies this means no good tea leaves to read for the next year.

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