Does Mr. Campbell Have a 'Magic' Number?

TheHatfieldsAndTheMcCoys
Feudin'Ville

Like many others I am of the opinion that there is considerable volatility in the British Columbia electorate.

Thus, I surmised that Thursday's Big Smear was hatched out of a serious fear amongst Irene Barr and her ilk that a slithering slippage of soft votes might be seriously challenging the BC Liberal Party's big majority.

But if you look at it from the side of the rationalists, and that includes hard-headed numbers crunchers like Will McMartin and lefty pragmatists like David Schreck, that majority has never been in question.

So, if you take that tack, you have to ask yourself why.

Why, if Gordon Campbell has never been in any danger of losing his majority, did his Rovian-inspired handlers lance the bubbling boil and push him out into the open to flash his venal side by spreading lies and misinformation about teachers?

Well, an occasional poster on our comment threads, 'BFD', has an interesting hypothesis:

"Let me be one of the first to call this. I don't think Mr. Campbell will be around as leader long enough to implement anything being suggested in this thread. Amongst others, MLA John Les as well as the husband of the former deputy premier have been sprinkling healthy doses of campaign-helper (measured in k's of cash) into certain ridings, all in crystal clear exchange for future leadership support. Of course, Coleman and Falcon are not far behind."

It took me a while to cotton on to this, but I think I've got it now.

Essentially BFD is suggesting that internecine warfare has broken out within the BC Liberal Party between the so-called 'centrist' real McCoy's and the extreme right 'redmeat' Hatfield faction.

And it is a fight to the death for the soul of the party with Mr. Campbell stuck in the middle trying to gauge who has the upper hand and who will continue to grudgingly lend him support when the battle is over.

Now, while I am not quite ready to swallow this hypothesis hook-line-and-sinker for a whole lot of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I'm not convinced there is actually a soul there to be saved, one's perspective can be shifted just by considering it.

For example, a couple of the first things that popped up for me was the following.....

Is there a magic number of seats, say 50, that Mr. Campbell must retain to keep the long knives of his own party's apparatchuks safely in their sheaths?

And, could the smear of teachers actually been a sop to the redmeat Hatfield's rather than a ten ton sledghammer attack on the NDP fly buzzing about harmlessly on the mansion's back patio?


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Update 11:00am: This view of the BC Liberal's weirdly wired world might also shift your perspective on why somebody would be willing to continue with late stage dirty tricks in, say, the riding of a star candidate who is likely viewed as a future jewel in the centrist 'McCoy's' crown.

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