BC Conservative Leadership Race

Since I looked at the BC Conservative leadership race ten days ago there has been some changes.   Dan Brooks has been rather silent as far as I can tell but Rick Peterson has not.

Rick Peterson has revamped his website and has added a few more people endorsing him as leader.   The new site is better laid on than the old one but still not a lot of content.  He had been tweeting a bit while he was in Fort St John for the energy conference.

He now has seven people endorsing him:
Those on the ballot as BC Conservative Candidates in 2013

• Carol Day
• Duane Nickull - the addition of his name is not new, though it is now confirmed he is endorseing Peterson whereas previsously it was unclear based on the Peterson website.
• Sean Upshaw

Not on the ballot as a BC Conservative but endorsed by the party

• Bill Clarke

On the ballot as an independent after being dropped by the BC Conservatives

• Iain Tootill

Ran as an independent

• Jamie Webbe - I would not have expected her to come out as a BC Conservative supporter because she sounds more like she should be a Green.   She did remarkably well for an independent candidate and managed 4.18% of the the vote.   I know that does not sound like a lot, but it is the 9th highest result for any independent which included three sitting MLAs and Arthur Hadland.  She also did not spend a lot of money, less than $4,000.

Doug Machan has also endorsed Rick Peterson, though he did not run in 2013 but is a BC Conservative Party director at large.

Still, not a large list of endorsements and certainly not any big names on the list so far.  I remain surprised that  Rick Peterson has come out of the gate so weakly.   All I can see is that either Rick Peterson is inexperienced in campaigning, or he is not very popular in Conservative circles, or he is just not as skilled as people keep trying to tell me he is.

Overall the BC Conservative Leadership race is looking more like one during the Wilf Hanni era than the John Cummins era.   It is only two weeks before their AGM and I would expect serious candidates to come out of the woodwork in time for this to be able to register so that they can speak to the members attending.

What should be much more disturbing for the BC Conservatives is that there is virtually no coverage of the race not only in the media but in the blogosphere as well.   Alan Forseth in Kamloops is offering his views, but that is about it.    In the Twittersphere the hashtag #LeadBCC is not getting much use.   If no one is interested in the race at all that should really worry the party.