World Affairs: BC NDP - On The Wrong Track

It's been about a month since the British Columbia provincial election, won relatively easily by the Liberal party of Premier Gordon Campbell. The leader of the defeated New Democratic Party, Carole James, has announced her decision to stay on as party leader to fight the next election.



Although four years is a long time in politics, James' decision must be music to the ears of the Liberals. In the just-concluded election campaign, she presided over several strategic failures that reveal her lack of skills and abilities to lead her party to victory. The long list of failures included:

1. Opposing the carbon tax, which alienated the environmental wing of the party. James' position on this issue betrayed a breathtaking lack of principle.

2. A muddled position on the Gateway - Port Mann Bridge - Highway 1 improvement program. It is still not clear where the NDP stood on this issue.

3. A most negative advertising campaign that portrayed British Columbia under the Liberals as a post-nuclear wasteland, in which thousands of classrooms are overcrowded, hundreds of hospitals have been closed, and all of BC's rivers have been personally destroyed by Gordon Campbell. Memo to the NDP advertising geniuses: when everything is exaggerated, then nothing is meaningful.

4. No less than three different campaign slogans were used at various times: "Eight Years of Gordon Campbell Are Enough", "Take Back Your BC" and "Because Everyone Matters". The fact that none of them worked is bad enough, but the need for three different slogans indicates a frantic lack of strategic vision from the top.

5. A stubborn emphasis on the minimum wage, an issue that affects a minuscule percentage of the population, most of whom are under the voting age and the rest of whom are likely illiterate to the point where they can't vote even if they wanted to.

After the 2005 election, James had four years to develop a solid strategy, to choose her campaign theme, to pin-point her angles of attack, and particularly in the light of the successful Obama campaign, to present a positive, inspiring vision for the future. Instead, the NDP presented a negative campaign with all the strategic accuracy of a bent shot-gun, and James must take responsibility for this.

The NDP may still win the election of 2013, if voters are tired of the Liberals and are looking for a change. It is likely that Gordon Campbell will not be contesting that election, and if the NDP know what is good for them, neither will Carole James.