British Columbia Digest: Claws out at fifty paces

The Liberals have a bad case of Cat Scratch Fever in British Columbia these days, as the race to replace Gordon Campbell as leader of the provincial party takes a particularly nasty turn, fuelled mainly by questionable recruitment to the eligible list of voters to the nomination process.

The three main principles of the race, George Abbot, Christy Clark and Kevin Falcon seem to be the main participants in the acrimonious turn of events, highlighted most recently by the addition of a cat to the listings of supporters of the Clark campaign complete with a fan club courtesy of the Abbot campaign and then there was the case of almost an entire hockey team, the Kelowna Rockets supposedly joining up with Team Falcon, apparently much to the surprise of those actually on the hockey team.

It has been a week of wild entertainment, once again providing BC with the title of wackiest of the wacky when it comes to politics. Though one wonders if the Liberals have given any consideration to the optics of this kind of nomination fraud, considering they are trying to provide the image of a party that understands it has made mistakes and wishes to provide a more accountable face to the electorate.

Judging by the events of the last week, we would imagine that isn't something that has crossed their minds in recent days. With the mud slinging starting to pile up on the road to Jerusalem, or in this case the podium at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre (West),  the candidates are pushing back with vigour.

Team Christy brought out the writing talents of Pamela Martin, one time news anchor for CTV BC and now an apparently proud volunteer for the Clark campaign, who as Michael Smyth in the Province uncovers, has provided the talking points for Team Clark in the face of some rather nasty attacks from the Abbott camp.

Those attacks came hot on the heels of a rather unusual endorsement for the Clark campaign, that coming from NDP leadership candidate Adrian Dix. Dix of course was making much mischief among the Liberals with his recommendation, though in a mixed up world of BC Politics, you have to wonder if perhaps it's a pre-emptive shot to sideline Ms. Clark, who might actually pose a bigger risk to any NDP aspirations that Mr. Dix is letting on.

Perhaps Mr. Dix was hoping to gain some traction in his own campaign by stepping into the white hot glow of the coverage of the Liberal controversies.

The interjection of the NDP candidate into the Liberal campaign is also instructive to note, as the NDP race hasn't quite accomplished much in the same way of attention thus far, with most British Columbian's probably rather unaware as to who is even running yet.

For the moment developments on their side of the political divide are certainly proving to be overshadowed by what's happening with the Liberals, a show that is proving to be quite entertaining, though we're not sure it will prove to provide for good news on any eventual election day.