Sunday, March 03, 2013

British Columbia's Tumblin' Crispy Christy Clark

British Columbia's unelected, unelectable and outgoing premier, Crispy Christy Clark, was nudged ever closer to the exit today - by her own party members.

More than a hundred BC Libs met in Surrey this morning to demand Clark resign to let somebody else, presumably almost anybody,  lead the government party into the May election.  It's hard to imagine how a change at the top could do the party much good at this point.

Recent polls find 59% of respondents favouring a change of government versus just 24% still supporting the BC Libs.   Worse still, over 70% of respondents believe the latest "balanced budget" was a scam designed to cloak an actual deficit.

Some think that a real contender might be willing to step in at this point to revive the BC Libs' fortunes before the poll but it's hard to imagine anyone with ambitions for the future being willing to "step in" to the mess Christy Clark and her advisers have left on the floor.

Clark has summoned a meeting of her cabinet this afternoon.  No word yet in which bunker they'll convene.

2 comments:

crf said...

http://www.cknw.com/news/vancouver/story.aspx?ID=1902566

The Liberal caucus is supporting Clark. Hopefully Clark has half the smarts of Carol James and follows her example after thinking for a few days about this debacle. Of course the caucus isn't going to NOT support the leader in such a public fashion so close to an election. But the "please resign Christy Clark" vibes they are sending ought to be unmistakable to anyone.

--

I was prepared to vote last election for the Liberal candidate, but voted for Lana Popham instead, when it was clear that the Liberals where going to form the government anyway. I thought the Libs should form government because I didn't think Carol James would make a good premier, and she had a stupid-squared policy of opposing the carbon tax.

Popham was one of a group of NDP MLAs that got Carol James to step down. Even though a good majority of the NDP caucus supported her, and voted to keep her on as leader. That dissident group's argument, that James was not very electable and not the best leader, was prescient.

During the Liberal convention, they should have elected Kevin Falcon. He was also likely to lose the next election. He was also to the right of Clark. But at least he was competent. Not a ditz. He liked the fight.

Clark should resign now, have the Liberals call a short emergency convention, and get it over with. No more of this stupidity.

Elliott Taylor said...

In three months we'll have premier elect Adrian Dix. Yaaay..... :\

I had a whole rant typed up here, but I just can't be bothered. Suffice to say I'm voting Green this May whether or not it makes any difference. The NDP have West End all sewn up so I guess my vote will be symbolic at best. At least then I can say four years from now that it wasn't my fault when we're all scratching our heads trying to tell the difference between the Dippers and the Libs.