Category Archives: Decision BC 2024

#BCPoli | Bozo Eruptions Disrupt Election Campaign

BC Politics, Decision BC 2024, Politics

On Saturday, October 17, 2009, Danielle Smith was elected leader of the fledgling, right-of-centre Wildrose Alberta political party. At the time, Ms. Smith was one of four elected Wildrose MLAs to sit as a Wildrose member in the Alberta Legislature.

Three years later, when the Writ was dropped on Sunday, March 26th, 2012, the 2012 election date was set for twenty-eight days later, on Monday, April 23rd.

With a tired and increasingly unpopular Alberta Progressive Party in power for forty-one consecutive years, and an ascendant Wildrose Party set to form government — if the polls were to be believed — a decidedly far-right-of-centre 41-year-young Danielle Smith looked forward to becoming Alberta’s 14th elected Premier.

Alas, that was not to be.

Although the 2012 campaign Danielle Smith and her Wildrose Party had run managed to increase their seat count from 4 to 17 seats, garnering 34.28% of the vote, it was Alison Redford — who succeeded Ed Stelmach as Alberta Progressive Conservative Party leader on Sunday, October 2nd, 2011 — who would be elected Premier, securing 43.97% of the vote, winning 61 seats in the Alberta Legislature.

Liberal leader Raj Sherman (9.89% of the vote, and 5 seats), and Brian Mason’s Alberta NDP (8.5%, and 4 seats) were little more than electoral afterthoughts.

Entering the 2012 Alberta electoral campaign, Danielle Smith was riding high in the polls, registering in the mid-50s, while Alison Redford was polling at around 34%. Again, the Alberta Liberals, NDP, and Alberta Party were electoral afterthoughts.

So, what happened to the 2012 “winning” Wildrose Party campaign?

As Stuart Thompson has written in The National Post …

It is a surefire rule of politics that at any given moment, somewhere in Canada a bozo is about to erupt.

Just as a political campaign is looking to flip the script, or turn the corner, or recapture the narrative, some bozo will ruin it for them, prompting damage control, tearful apologies, or, in the most severe cases, a resignation.

The bozos simply can’t stop themselves from erupting.

Conservative strategist Tom Flanagan, who ran Smith’s 2012 campaign, oversaw one of the most memorable stretches of bozo eruptions in Canadian political history: Smith wanted a big tent party, and open and unvetted candidate nominations.

Two days after the 2012 election was called, a Wildrose candidate’s year-old blog post was unearthed declaring that all gays were destined for a “lake of fire”. Smith refused to rebuke her candidate, saying the party “accepts a wide range of views.” And the hits just kept on comin’ for the Wildrose campaign, as day after day after day, a new candidate bozo eruption garnered front page coverage, and the lead story status on the evening news.

Danielle Smith’s dreams of becoming the Wildrose Premier were dashed, the party 20 points behind their polling on Election Day.

What does the above have to do with British Columbia’s upcoming Saturday, October 19th provincial election, and the outcome of the election?

Kevin Falcon’s B.C. United Party has gathered disturbing information on several of the B.C. Conservative Party candidates running for office, including …

Need we say that the 38th British Columbia provincial election hasn’t even begun, and already John Rustad’s B.C. Conservative Party is experiencing unfortunate and devastating candidate destroying “information” aka “bozo eruptions”.

Now, this is not VanRamblings first rodeo.

We’ve worked on and written about municipal, provincial and federal campaigns for office for the past 61 years, and we’re here to tell you that the unvetted, looney tunes grab bag of B.C. Conservative Party candidates for office will from the day the Writ of Elections is dropped on Saturday, September 14th, through until Election Day on Saturday, October 19th, be subject to one B.C. Conservative Party-destroying bozo eruption after another.

Doesn’t mean to say that the B.C. Conservatives won’t win a handful of seats, mostly up north, or if British Columbians continue to dislike the cut of B.C. United Party leader Kevin Falcon’s jib, that the B.C. Conservatives could form the official opposition. But form government post October 19th?

Never. Not in a million Sundays.


Three Hundred Eight Election Prediction outcome, May 6 2013

The final projected popular vote count heading into 2013’s British Columbia election,  giving Adrian Dix’s BC NDP a comfortable majority government couldn’t have been more wrong. Instead the final seat count on Election Night looked like this …

BC Liberals win

So, what happened that changed Adrian Dix’s political fortunes from projected Premier to also run status, and Opposition party leader?

Three things …

  • Maple Leaf Strategies pollster Dimitri Pantazopoulos. The longtime Stephen Harper pollster sent his team out to British Columbia six months in advance of the 2013 election. Here’s what Mr. Pantazopoulos advised Premier Christy Clark, and her campaign manager, Mike McDonald … “Focus on the 50 winnable seats. Ignore the 35 ridings where BC Liberals will never win a seat. Run a riding-by-riding campaign in each of those 50 ridings, where we’ll do intensive polling each evening, such that at the outset of each day, the candidate in the riding can speak to the issue of the day, the one that will get her or him elected to Victoria on voting day. Pour all of the party’s resources into those 50 ridings, and come Election Day, the BC Liberal Party will form government for the fourth consecutive time.” When Mr. Pantazopoulos made the suggestion, with some reluctance — given that the party was mired at 26% in the polls, a full 21 points behind the BC NDP — Ms. Clark and Mr. McDonald adopted Mr. Pantazopoulos campaign strategy;
  • On Earth Day, April 22nd, 2013 while on the campaign trail in Kamloops, BC NDP leader Adrian Dix arbitrarily and unilaterally announced a new environmental platform, reversing a decade of BC NDP environmental policy, stating “Under my leadership, the BC NDP reaffirms our party’s opposition to the Northern Gateway Pipeline and offshore oil exploration.” The announcement made environmentalists in the party ecstatic, but disappointed and angered BC NDP shadow environment critic John Horgan, not to mention whole swaths of the party’s union supporters. The BC Liberal Party used this reversal of BC NDP environmental policy by running a series of hundreds of weathervane ads that devastated the BC NDP campaign;

  • Although in 2013 BC NDP leader Adrian Dix campaigned with vigour, Mr. Dix performed poorly on both the province-wide televised debate, and the subsequent Leaders’ Debate on CKNW, appearing confused and unprepared, his style halting and uncertain, in contrast to a vibrant and schooled Christy Clark. So, yes, campaigns count, and can impact on an election outcome. As can an effective campaign strategy, and a well-experienced campaign team. And money, of course, for those saturation radio and TV ads, particularly in the latter two weeks of the campaign.

In some ways,  the coming provincial election is a crapshoot. Anything could happen. Who knows what will transpire during the 35-day election campaign?

The above said, the campaign strategy, experienced campaign team, the well-vetted candidates for office running in the 93 ridings across the province who won’t be given to bozo eruptions that will devastate their campaign for office, and the flush with money ads to saturate the airwaves throughout the campaign that the BC Conservative Party simply does not, and will not, have … well …

A lack of resources hardly makes for a winning BC Conservative election campaign, whatever the outcome of the election on October 19th.

#BCPoli | BC Conservatives On the Rise, While BC NDP, B.C. United & Greens Fall?

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Quitto Maggi’s Mainstreet Research poll on British Columbia voter intention, above, must be considered a rogue poll, as the results vary wildly with the work of every other reputable polling firm that has been taking the temperature of British Columbia voters leading up to this autumn’s October 19th provincial election.

As published in the Vancouver Sun on March 18th ..

According to the latest Angus Reid Institute poll on voter intention, it appears Premier David Eby’s party has a sizable lead ahead of Kevin Falcon’s B.C. United and John Rustad’s B.C. Conservatives, as well as the benefit of being the incumbent party. The NDP remains the party of choice for most voters when it comes to tackling key issues in B.C., despite most respondents saying they don’t feel the provincial government has met expectations when it comes to improving on the cost of living and health care access.

Every other reputable pollster weighing in on British Columbia voter intention find themselves in accord with the polling results published by Angus Reid.

Make no mistake, B.C. Conservative Party leader John Rustad comes across as a nice guy, well-meaning, authentic, an ‘aw shucks down home fella’ you’d like to have over for Sunday dinner.

But here’s the rub for Mr. Rustad and his fledgling B.C. Conservative Party …

  • Mr. Rustad’s B.C. Conservative Party has $346,000 in the bank with which to fight an election, while Kevin Falcon’s B.C. United Party — which has been peppering the airwaves with a (so far ineffective) multi-million dollar anti-David Eby, anti-B.C. NDP ad campaign, has $10 million in his pre-election war chest to fight the upcoming election — and David Eby’s BC NDP are fundraising like mad, with $12 million currently in the kitty to fight the upcoming provincial election;
  • Organization. The BC NDP has a finely-tuned, can’t be beat election machine, a grassroots riding-based campaign strategy dependent on thousands of volunteers signing up to help David Eby’s government gain re-election this upcoming autumn. B.C. United are not just well-funded they, too, have an experienced campaign team. Mr. Rustad became leader of the B.C. Conservatives on March 31, 2023, less than a year ago — believe us when we write that in addition to having no money to wage a winning campaign for office, the B.C. Conservatives do not have the campaign infrastructure necessary to wage a winning campaign for office;
  • 93 candidates. Each party will field 93 candidates for office this upcoming autumn. The B.C. NDP will run a tightly-controlled campaign for re-election, each of their candidates for office vetted to a fare-thee-well. The same is true for Kevin Falcon’s B.C. United Party, and Sonia Furstenau’s B.C. Green Party. Not so with John Rustad’s neophyte B.C. Conservative Party candidates for office. We’ll write more about the implications of untested candidates running for office tomorrow on VanRamblings.

As we’ve written previously, six and one-half months out from British Columbia’s autumn provincial election, approximately 4% of the British Columbia electorate are even remotely aware that there’s a provincial election on the horizon.

Let’s keep in mind that only 18% of British Columbia’s electorate tune into one or another of the various evening news programmes, read a newspaper  or otherwise keep themselves informed on what’s going on in our province. There was a time when we had an informed electorate, passionate about the place where they lived.

No longer.

Now, four per cent of the electorate represents 160,000 British Columbians, no small number that. But still. One hundred sixty thousand out of four million?

Hmmm.

We’ll have a much better idea as to how British Columbians feel about the state of the province in the early part of October, three weeks or so shy of the election.

In some sense the story will be told, too, coming out of the two election debates that will occur this autumn: one broadcast on all the television networks, the other on CKNW, when they hold their pre-election Leaders’ Debate. These debates, as we’ll write tomorrow, can have a dramatic impact on the outcome of an election.

More tomorrow.

#BCPoli | #VanPoli | VanRamblings’ Triumphant Return in 2024 | Election Year BC

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Following a 415-day break from publishing on VanRamblings, we return in 2024 to cover municipal, provincial and federal politics, and much much more.

In the coming months, VanRamblings will cover the second full year of the ABC civic administration at Vancouver City Hall, British Columbia’s upcoming provincial election — to be held on Saturday, October 19th, the first election for David Eby as Premier of the province of British Columbia — and the state of federal politics.

Fifty per cent of the countries across our globe go to the polls this year, so it is likely we’ll cover aspects of some of those elections, most particularly the morass that is politics in the United States.

As has been the case dating back to VanRamblings’ first column — published in February 2004 (the VanRamblings blog created by current Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen — who told us, “Raymond, you need a blog. Let me see what I can do.”) — more often than not, Monday through Thursday we’ll write on a number of topics, ranging from homelessness to health, politics to tech, and more.

Friday will be given over to Arts Friday— mainly cinema, we think you’ll find, in a bit of a change, this Thursday focusing on VanRamblings’ Best Picture Oscar predictions, and on Friday, our Best Actress / Actor, etc. predictions — Saturdays to Stories of a Life (although, for the next while we’ll focus on a Redux re-telling of previous Stories), and Sundays to Music, with a focus on the identification of our favourite 100 albums of all time, replete with audio, video and lots of storytelling.

After having been “away” for 59 weeks, chances are that it’ll take us a while to build back our readership — we’ve begun publishing now, in preparation for daily coverage of 2024’s British Columbia provincial election when, if history offers any indication, VanRamblings’ “daily hits” spikes to 10,000 to 50,000+ each day of the 60 days we publish prior to election day, in this case, as above, on October 19th.

As we wrote elsewhere recently, the central thematic structure of VanRamblings going forward will be kindness.

In a world rent with division, misinformation, rabid and accusatory partisanship, a spiritual hollowness, loneliness, anger, and so much more that is disquieting, VanRamblings will make every attempt to be kind to those about whom we write (although, we may / likely will take “entities” to task, when we feel it is deserving).

We do, however, reserve the right to disparage federal Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre, who we believes represents an existential threat to the Canada we know and love. Even at that, we will acknowledge Mr. Poilievre’s humanity.

Wherever possible, we’ll also attempt to keep columns to under a thousand words (we’re striving for 750 – 800 words), and on some days may publish a much shortened column. The exception, this week, will be Stories of a Life Redux — a republishing of an earlier Stories of a Life column (we will publish original content in this category in the weeks and months to come) — which will run long, at 1400 words.

VanRamblings will celebrate its 20th anniversary next month.

At 73 years of age, the writer-editor of VanRamblings — after several years of health challenges (hey, this getting old thing, it ain’t for wimps, although we’re feeling much better health-wise, at present) — is twenty years older than when we first began publishing on this peripatetic blog and, sad to say, we lack the “sit in front of the computer for 72 consecutive hours to publish a column” energy we once did.

The above said, we don’t believe we’ve lost a step when it comes to forming an opinion, and the recording of that opinion, which some may see as salutary, while others may have feelings on the matter that are not exactly in accord.

At any rate, we’re back. Welcome home!

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