When Carole James became B.C. NDP leader in November 2003, the party was just beginning to recover from the 2001 election rout. According to retired UVic political-science professor Norman Ruff, the expectation inside and outside the NDP was that James would be a "token leader for one election and it would take at least two elections for the party to get back to its usual level of support".

"But she confounded them," Ruff told the Georgia Straight. "The party did recover in one election: 2005. The party reasserted itself as an effective official Opposition. If you look at that long view, I think she's done far more than people expected."

However, Ruff also said that James and the NDP have since become "reactive", and he suggests that this explains why the party is lagging behind the B.C. Liberals in the polls. Ipsos Reid reported in June, one month past the midpoint to the 2009 election, that voters' preferences have returned to where the two parties roughly stood before the last election.

In the week before the May 17, 2005 balloting, the B.C. Liberals led the NDP by eight percent, according to Ipsos Reid. Campbell's B.C. Liberals were leading by nine percent this past June: 45 percent compared to 36 percent for the NDP.

Ruff said that although the NDP has been "fairly effective in exposing the failings of the government…they're not seen as a government-in-waiting". James, for her part, "hasn't managed to capture the aura of a premier-in-waiting".

For the NDP to come within striking distance of the B.C. Liberals, Ruff said, the party should get people wondering what kind of a premier James would make and what an NDP cabinet would look like.

A former NDP cabinet member concedes that the NDP isn't seen as the next government, not just yet. "It takes time," Paul Ramsey told the Straight. "Remember, Mr. Campbell has been in power for six years now. For the first four of these years, the NDP had exactly two MLAs [Joy MacPhail and Jenny Kwan]. Carole James has led a significant Opposition for a touch over two years."

In those two years, according to Ramsey, the NDP has done a "good job" highlighting the "weaknesses" of the Campbell government on issues ranging from health care, the lottery scandal, massive overspending on projects like the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre, and the problems of homelessness and poverty.

Still, Ramsey said, they "could do a far better job of presenting an alternative vision for…the province's direction".

Ramsey recalled that he was NDP minister of health when he first met James about 12 years ago, when she headed the British Columbia School Trustees Association. "She's a consensus builder," Ramsey said. "I think the province may be finally growing out of that perception that politics should be about destroying the other person."

But this type of leadership hasn't worked, according to Harold Steves, a former NDP MLA and now a Richmond city councillor.

"When she became leader, her idea was to be less forceful and to have the NDP caucus working on issues as a group rather than the leader doing everything," Steves told the Straight. "We're not used to elders or premiers or anybody else allowing cabinet ministers or shadow cabinet members to enunciate policy. And, therefore, in the big city media it doesn't get any press, and nobody knows what the NDP is doing."

Steves suggested that James could learn a thing or two from former NDP premier Dave Barrett. "If Barrett didn't say it, then it didn't get said," he said. "It got the message across [to] the public where the party stood. I'm not critical of Carole, but it's time for her to reconsider how she operates as a leader."

The name of NDP health critic Adrian Dix has been among those mentioned as a possible successor to James. Dix–a former chief of staff for onetime NDP premier Glen Clark–dismissed such talk and told the Straight that James will "absolutely" stay to lead the party in the 2009 election.