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Voting is about to begin, and the choice for New Democrats looks like this: Do they want a leader in the style of Mike Harcourt, who led the party to victory in 1991? Or another Glen Clark, who five years later kept the party in power for a second term?

The B.C. NDP's 28,500 eligible voters will begin on Monday to choose their next leader. That is the first day of voting by telephone or online, and the campaigns are pushing their supporters to vote early, with the winner chosen on April 17.

The path to victory leads only to the office of the leader of the official opposition. With no disrespect for the worthy office, that is not the real goal. The frontrunners are trying to persuade the membership that they can bring the party back to power after a decade-long drought.

The NDP has been relegated to the opposition benches for three successive elections. It gained no ground in the last trip to the polls. With the Liberals again enjoying a lead in popular opinion thanks to the departure of Gordon Campbell, newly minted Premier Christy Clark is toying with an early election call.

With election readiness at the forefront, it helps shape the NDP ballot question as one of raw politics rather than ideology.

"The ballot question is, who is best to lead the party to victory?" said candidate Mike Farnworth in an interview this week.

Candidate Adrian Dix frames the question in a similar way: "Who is the best leader, who can deliver results - namely a majority government for the NDP?"

Glen Clark 2.0?

Mr. Dix, who served as Mr. Clark's chief of staff, has been a stronger contender from the start, having done the critical early work of big membership signups. His campaign platform, his team and his supporters all point to a Clark-style leadership.

Mr. Dix begs to differ, naturally. "I admire Mike [Harcourt]and Glen [Clark]and Dave Barrett. I have many mentors in politics, but the path I follow is mine."

But his platform bears more than a passing resemblance to the class warfare that Mr. Clark successfully waged in 1996. Mr. Clark used wedge issues to motivate the NDP's core supporters to get out and vote. (The former premier is now president of the Jim Pattison Group, making him one of the province's leading entrepreneurs, and proving that beneath his polarizing politics was a supremely pragmatic core.) Mr. Dix has promised to restore the minimum tax on banks and roll back the last three Liberal tax cuts for corporations. The money would go to anti-poverty programs and to making postsecondary education more affordable. He would use the province's resources to create jobs - which recalls the Clark government's Jobs and Timber Accord.

And Mr. Dix pointed out that the last time the NDP won was in 1996 - the Clark campaign, which was all about clear choices. "What I think is important is that we give a clear message to people and motivate people to vote," Mr. Dix said. "Particularly the 1.4 million British Columbians who didn't vote in the last election."

Mike Harcourt II?

Mike Farnworth, meanwhile, is touting his popular appeal with the broader public - the latest poll this week again shows he has the best chance against Premier Clark (the current one, that is) in a general election.

Mr. Harcourt led his party to victory in 1991 in part because the ruling Social Credit party was in tatters. But he also crafted a campaign that aimed to bridge Main Street and Howe Street. Mr. Farnworth channels a Harcourt style, where consensus is king. "My goal is to unify the caucus and reach out to progressive voters." On the unity front, he has attracted the party's moderates, but he also has won endorsements from seven of the 13 dissidents who helped force out Carole James because she was seen as too wishy-washy and middle-of-the-road.

Mr. Farnworth rejects the Harcourt label, yet he has been invoking Mr. Harcourt's name in recent days, and is clearly the candidate who fits the label best.

"In many ways I do bring that Harcourt approach. I feel strongly that government has to work with communities, it's got to bring people together. That contributed to some of our biggest successes. But at the end of the day I'm me, I'm not Harcourt, I'm not Clark, I'm Mike Farnworth."

A third way

Right now it looks like a two-way race, although candidate John Horgan is picking up steam - on Thursday, Nicholas Simons dropped out and threw what support he has to Mr. Horgan. Fortunately, B.C. has elected one other NDP premier - Dave Barrett, in 1972 - to offer a pairing. Mr. Barrett's government lasted only until 1975, but New Democrats still proudly remember his legacy - including the creation of the Agricultural Land Reserve and the Insurance Corp. of B.C. On the stump or in debate, the populist Mr. Horgan offers the party an echo of the remarkable Mr. Barrett.

.......

Both front-runners confident

The polls that show Mike Farnworth leading the pack in the NDP race are interesting, but they reflect the preferences of the broad general public, not the 28,500 party members who are able to vote.

Inside the camps, both frontrunners in the contest say they have reason to be confident.

The Adrian Dix campaign says it has the biggest canvas operation in the contest and has managed to reach about two-thirds of the members across the province. An insider says their tracking shows support for Mr. Dix is "a strong trend" in all four regions - Vancouver Island, the north, the Interior and in the Lower Mainland.

The Farnworth camp offered a more precise (but maybe more selective) breakdown. In the Surrey ridings there are just over 6,000 members, according to a source, and the two frontrunners are running neck-and-neck. On Vancouver Island, with 5,500 members, Islander John Horgan has a strong base, but Mr. Farnworth is tracking with about 60 per cent support. (A little higher in the south island, a little lower in the north.) And with nearly 3,000 members in the seven ridings surrounding Mr. Farnworth's Port Coquitlam backyard, his campaign says he is running at 80-per-cent support.

Getting out your vote is, as always, key. The party is mixing telephone, Internet and in-person voting and hopes to hit 70-per-cent turnout by April 17.

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