About this time last year Christy Clark summed up the progress of her premiership for Frances Bula, who was preparing an extensive profile for the April edition of Vancouver magazine.

"Last year wasn't really my year; it was my predecessor's year," Clark told Bula early in 2012, saying the previous 12 months had been spent exorcizing the spectre of Gordon Campbell. Finally the unfettered Christy Clark could make her case to the people of British Columbia.

In writing her profile, Bula sought the views of Glen Clark, another hard charger who took over the reins of his party and then had to decide whether to go to the polls quickly or wait. Now that we've seen Christy Clark's strategy was to wait, one section of Bula's fascinating article rings particularly prescient:

"A new boss can choose between two routes, says Glen Clark, now a top executive in the Pattison empire. He or she can mount a surprise attack. Glen Clark won the leadership of his party in February (as did Christy), and within four months he'd reversed much of predecessor Mike Harcourt's negative coverage and scandals, sailed through a few of his own making, announced that he was freezing tuition fees and Hydro rates, called a provincial election, and won it. The second route is to take it slow. 'There is no right answer,' he says. 'There are lots of examples of leaders waiting and letting people get to know them.'

"At first Christy Clark's team looked like it would follow Glen Clark's blitzkrieg example. On March 14, 2011, her first day in power, she raised the minimum wage (something the previous Liberal caucus had been dead set against).

"Announcements followed of a new public holiday, a review of Hydro rates, a review of B.C. Ferries fares. But Christy had a particular challenge, Glen notes, because her caucus was composed of people who hadn't supported her during the leadership run; pushing hard would have meant running 'against her own caucus and against the government.' Moving slowly, by contrast, she could be more sure about 'bringing her caucus members along to her view.' So instead of simply suspending the HST and calling an election, she opted to put off a vote until May 2013, a decision that has invited difficult, energy-draining tests: an HST referendum (voters narrowly rejecting the tax), and a by-election in which she got the same number of votes as Gordon Campbell had, but only squeaked by because the Greens didn't have a candidate. Awaiting the general election, she and the Liberals grind away on the kinds of projects that are tough to build excitement around. Creating jobs. Opening trade markets in China, Japan, Korea, and India. Expanding the province's clean-tech sector.

"And all the while, the helium of her popularity slowly leaks away, just as 20 years ago it did for Kim Campbell, who in only a few weeks went from being the most popular prime minister in the history of polling to someone judged too flip, too candid, too inexperienced."

Elsewhere in the profile, Christy Clark tells Bula: "I've got a year and a half to deliver on this jobs plan, and I am going to deliver on it. If I can get to May 2013 and say, 'Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick' -- these are all the things I've done -- I think I'll win."

But the display copy for the article defined the stakes, starkly in view today:

"A year into office, Christy Clark is leading the B.C. Liberals toward a 2013 election that will either rejuvenate her party or destroy it."

Read Frances Bula's entire Vancouver Magazine article here.

David Beers is editor of The Tyee.