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Print10 reasons why the B.C. Liberals won the provincial election
It's a three-peat. Premier Gordon Campbell has won his third consecutive B.C. Liberal majority. Now, it's just a question of how big this majority will turn out to be.
Here are 10 reasons why the B.C. Liberals won this election:
1. B.C. is a conservative province and it likes conservative politicians. The Reform and federal Conservative parties have done well in recent elections.
2. The NDP has never obtained more than 46 percent of the vote, which happened in a losing election in 1979. In the midst of a serious economic downturn in 1983 when the NDP had an experienced and charismatic leader in Dave Barrett, the party won 45 percent. This time, the NDP might win 42 percent under the less charismatic Carole James. It's no big surprise.
3. The Green party pecks away at the NDP in certain constituencies. In North Vancouver-Lonsdale, for instance, a very green NDP candidate, Janice Harris, went down to defeat thanks to a strong showing by the Green candidate, Michelle Corcos.
4. The B.C. Liberals ran a slick campaign. They had a section on their Web site called "Stop the Smear", which sometimes engaged in some smearing of its own. The NDP wasn't very good at counterpunching.
5. The premier benefited from a provincial media that wasn't very interested in such issues as the grizzly bear hunt, offshore drilling, or run-of-river power--which are three topics that galvanize some opponents to the B.C. Liberals.
6. The B.C. Liberals had lots and lots of money. The party had more money than the NDP.
7. The NDP failed to connect with many of its strongest supporters by moving to the mushy middle.
8. The Stanley Cup playoffs diverted public attention from the election.
9. Female party leaders rarely fare very well in provincial politics.
10. The B.C. Liberals attracted some solid new candidates in this campaign, and were able to present the impression that the party had undergone some renewal.
Comments
Despite being told they needed to reach out to various ethnic minority communities, that now represent almost half the population of Metro Vancouver, they blankly stared off into the distance and their beady little eyes glazed over. The Libs ad agency didn't drop that particular ball.
SMBs
After the salmon and whales are all coated in oil slicks, and sea level rise has swallowed Richmond, it will be time for the Libs to put up a big sign at the border : THIS USED TO BE THE BEST PLACE ON EARTH. Sign will be made in China of course, with our export raw logs and lead paint
Can you imagine a political leader saying no women are allowed to be hired as teachers in our schools because there's too many of them now?
She wasn't able to effectively get media coverage and it was not just solely due to the Canwest conservative (BC Liberal) bias. She was massively ineffective against Gordon Campbell & the liberals and she seemed digitally clueless other than not getting nailed for violating BC Election laws on election day like the BC Liberal Party & the BC Green Party on see
http://adultaddstrengths.com/2009/05/12/bc-liberal-party-is-violating-bc...
She was very uninspiring as a leader. Wasn't quite as bad as Stephane Dion, but not much better. If the NDP wants to win the next election, they need to do something they don't seem to be very good at or willing to do.
Look inward.
Examine what they did wrong as opposed to their typical reaction of reflexively blaming everyone but themselves.
Yes there were external factors but there's not a lot of control over them, what they do have control over is themselves.
Hopefully they don't just use the typical losing political party excuse "it's not us, our policies, our leader, or our message, we just didn't communicate it that well". While the BC NDP WAS pretty inept at communicating their message it was also their actual policies. And messages. And Leader or lack thereof.
So quickly find a new leader who is actually a leader, not everyone is, and start the reexamination. Or get ready to give the BC Liberals a 4th term.
Pete Quily
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The party needs a new face. Looking at you year after year only brings with it history of what has not been succeeding. You lack charisma and many no longer believe the party is strong with you leading. Nothing personal.
The campaign could have worked with focusing on what the NDP can do, not - in most cases - riding the Liberals coattails as to what the Liberals were doing wrong - just speak to what the NDP can do right. The marketing tactics used by the Liberals helped NDP sabotage themselves publicly. You've (NDP) been side-swiped by psychopathic snakes in suits who play a sleazy game so it doesn't look like they did anything and thus the NDP party hung themselves. The NDP took the bait not to do the right thing but to look good. It makes the party come across as childish.
As for the prick named Gordon Campbell, the drunk could f**k right off. As much as I am a disappointed NDPer, I know for a fact I will never sink as low as to vote for the Liberals. If there is no change at the top with the NDP, I will not vote at all.
Gas prices rise, and she opportunistically tries to capitalize with an "axe the tax" campaign. Gang violence spikes, and she proposes to build more jails. She speaks about the need for public transportation, and then flip flops in her support for the Port Mann. People could see it for what it was - Carole James lacked brains, backbone, and principle.
In regards to the economy, it's no surprise they lost on that issue. Years of rhetoric caught up with them. Businesses encompass many sizes and span many industries. They never realistically could have won over the entire business community, and nor should they bother to try. What they should have done was identify certain industries that the province would target, even if that included some manner of tax cuts or shifting. The people needed to hear a vision, a plan, a way forward, and the NDP never provided that, instead focusing all their attention on the Liberals.
You can try and make other excuses, but it all came down to leadership and the economy in my opinion. Sadly, the NDP have nobody to blame but themselves for this one.
Don't even get me started on the olympic village or the games in general. The liberals has put our province in severe debt for at least 30 years. My childrens children will still be paying for it when I'm long gone.
I think the new liberal slogan should read " hey let's sell everything off to the yanks so we have nothing to make bc strong"
There are many reasons why not to vote for the liberals, I wish i could think of some now but i have to hit the streets and find a job along with my wife... maybe next time Carole, maybe next time! Thank you very much for trying to make a better life for everyone.
-Mike Cantelon
He may have won the election but nature will not win. Say good-bye to our heritage salmon, say good-bye to your water and say hello to higher bc hygro prices. The liberals must like eating farm fish and don't forget to take off the skin.
The NDP just has to learn to play the news media, say certain words, take acting lesson on grinning and make false promises.(people will forget)
Nature is very fragile right now and it can't take the arrorgant abuse. We will follow Alexander Morton and Rafe Mair who are interested in protecting our "strong" resources.
An older man in our meeting said that people in Vancouver do not care about our rivers. Seeing the results of this election, he is right.
That one policy destroyed years of work for the NDP turning off voters and making it harder for the NDP to gain traction because they just created a negative that had to be countered in the minds of those who would have just voted NDP.
JAMES HAS GOT TO GO.
Low voter turnout. In some ridings (Peace River for example 40% or less turnout).
Negative campaigning works because it shrinks the vote turnout, as practiced in the States by Karl Rove and his ilk.
When the voter feels no one is listening, they don't vote.
And how can we forget the Liberal's friends at Canwest? The coverage on Global last night was so fawning it was nauseating. I had to mute the stuff especially after one on air person made note of the fact that although the NDP were leading in one riding, that would change because the Liberals would win it anyways. ( The NDP won it anyways. It was what one would consider a safe NDP seat based on polling and past elections.)
Sorry day for democracy when 23% of the voters decide who the government will be, no matter who won it in the end.
The Society of the Spectacle.
...
9. Female party leaders rarely fare very well in provincial politics."
Well, Charlie, I don't think female party leaders have done particularly well in federal politics, either!
Any number of opinion polls over the last few years showed a telling gender gap, with the BC Liberals enjoying a huge twenty point lead among men, and a small lead or even trailing at times among women. What did BC NDP strategists do to counter male uneasiness about Carole James? Nothing, of course, because in their view that's the leader's own job!
Well, to be fair, they did do one thing. They enforced passage of a very hamfisted affirmative action policy at the 2008 convention, a decision which accelerated any paranoid suspicions being fanned by right-wing whispering campaigns and open-mouth radio hosts.
I would hope that in your discussion of "provincial media" you're including the CBC. The public broadcaster has in recent years become more and more a Liberal agency in both federal and provincial politics. Nowhere is this more clear than in their fawning coverage of even the most perfunctory appearances by Ujjal Dosanjh.
Rod Smelser
We should do everything possible to ensure she stays in as the NDP leader!
Carole, please don't go... we like having you on our team
This will insure the NDP losing four in a row
4ThePeople
@
http://bc-election.com
The Liberals (for all their mistakes) have turned this province from a high-taxed, have-not province to probably the best jurisdiction in North America (and one of the best in the world) from which to be weathering the global recession.
During the Liberal's eight years, people actually started to move back to BC, and young people opted to stay here for jobs - instead of heading east to Ontario, or south to the US.
So, blame who or what you want for the Liberal's win, but at the end of the day, it was because they provided the best choice.
Yesterday, 1,546,000 Canadians went to the polls in the 39th BC Provincial General Election.
That's a quarter of a million fewer people than the 1,800,000 Canadians who voted in BC electoral districts in the 40th Federal General Election last October 14th. And than in turn is less than the 1,832,000 voters who turned out to vote in British Columbia in the previous federal general election in January of 2006.
Something is very, very wrong with this picture. It's time some of the pundits took this into account in their writeups on BC politics, and time that BC NDP provincial strategists took a look at what's happening in terms of real voter turnout.
Rod Smelser
I also think that the name 'STV' sucked bigtime! It sounds like SCTV - a little too mickymouse for an election and didn't mean anything.
When I read the leaflet describing the old system and the STV proposal, it was TOTALLY AMBIGUOUS, made no sense, and was a waste of time. Somehow it looked like Surrey and New West already had STV, but I couldn't study it any longer because it was clear to me that the LEAFLET WAS DESIGNED TO CONFUSE. As was the video on the website. Looked very confusing to me, and I am ALL FOR ELECTORAL REFORM. I voted for it anyway because I suspect the confusion was created on purpose.
What was wrong with the old model and name 'Equal Representation' that was shown before?
May just figure out why the federal conservatives and provincial conservatives agree on over 85% of their policies, the other 15% being a reflection of the differance between federal and provincial matters.
Case in point both the federal and provincial conservatives are opposed to a carbon tax.
The provincial conservatives are totally opposed to the recognition and reconciliation act.
The liberals would not talk about it, and in affect gagged all information to the public.
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