When B.C. Premier Christy Clark backed down from her desire to hold a provincial election this fall, most political observers thought it was a good move. Now she could concentrate on mastering the art of governing until the next election, which isn't scheduled to be called until May 2013.
As it turns out, Ms. Clark has decided to begin fighting that election now.
The premier's Liberal party has released attack ads against new B.C. Conservative Leader John Cummins. The former federal MP has only been on the job a few months and yet has succeeded in putting a major scare into the Liberal government.
The Liberals are the province's so-called free enterprise party, as was the Social Credit party before it. And as was the case with the Socreds, the Liberals are a coalition of Liberals and Conservatives. In the last 40 years the only time that the free-enterprise option has been defeated at the polls has been when the coalition has fractured.
That is what the Liberals are concerned about with Mr. Cummins. That under his high-profile leadership, his party will siphon off enough of the Conservative vote that it will open the door to the NDP victory in the next general election.
So the Liberals have gone on the attack.
There are two fundamental problems with the ads and the strategy.
First, the ads themselves are preposterously two-faced. For instance, they accuse Mr. Cummins of being a politician who says one thing and does another. This from the party that said it wouldn't sell B.C. Rail and then did, that promised not to bring in the HST and then did. And those are just two of the more glaring examples of how the Liberals ignored promises they made in government.
The other problem with the attempt to damage Mr. Cummins' this way is that it represents the kind of politics that Ms. Clark said she detested when she successfully ran for the Liberal leadership in February as the candidate for change.
During that campaign, the former radio host often railed against "old-style politics" that didn't help resolve the many substantive issues of the day. And she was right. Many believed that she would turn her back on the kind of cynical politics and tactics embodied in the attack campaign on Mr. Cummins.
So far the two radio spots and the website the government party has set up devoted to exposing Mr. Cummins failings as a politician have received poor reviews. The Liberals and Ms. Clark have been hammered pretty hard in the media for the deceitful nature of the operation. But they may not care if polling reveals that the ads are working.
Which all just goes to show the voter that the more things change the more they stay the same.
Gary Mason