Bill

You forgot to mention that Taylor went to work for one of the banks she gave a reduced tax deal. She maybe 68 but the item you forgot is more damaging. As for Diane Watts it presents a possible contest between two women and one is loaded with Campbell baggage. Not a good prospect for the liberals.

The NDP tried this in 2000 with Ujjal Dosanjh. What makes the liberals think they can just change leaders and all their transgressions will be forgotten? Are BCers that dumb. That's a question that needs an answer.

Good Item Bill

This was a good article but I agree that the entire BC Liberals will be put out to pasture eventually. I like Ms Watts and I also like Ms James as well. However my vote would go to the party who can best reflect my needs. I think most voters feel this way. I don't see anything coming out of the BC Liberals except to keep pushing an agenda that the electorate no longer wants or cares about. Not only do these people have a bad image problem as a party but no one I've spoken to can get over the HST lie after the last election. So in my view it does not matter who is the leader of the BC Liberals is. The damage has already been done and the only way I can see these guys climbing in the polls is a radical shift in thinking about being a government and changing back to so called center left/right in politics. I hope that after some time passes we can revisit this question as it truly does deserve an answer.

One Trick Ponies

Bill Bennett was as loathed as Gordo is today in 1986, the Socreds were done like dinner, and lo and behold Bill Vander Zalm with his pearly whites takes over the leadership, the Socred's foibles are all but forgotten, and the MSM treats the Zalm like a movie star. The Zalm and his Socreds go on to win a landslide election in 1986.

Wash, Rinse, and Repeat.

Mike Harcourt was also in a tail-spin a decade later and resigned, the NDP was done like dinner, and lo and behold Glen Clark with his pearly whites takes over the NDP leadership, the NDP's foibles are all but forgotten, and the MSM treats Clark like a movie star. Clark and his NDP go on to win the election.

Later both the Zalm and Clark face horrendous MSM criticism for their foibles and their respective replacement leasers suffer disaster at the hands of the electorate.

History seems to have a knack for repeating itself with these "One Trick Ponies".

The real question should be "Who Will Fill James' Shoes" in such a Shakespearean tragedy?

Polakite

Mary Polak as leader? Who can forget the million dollars she spent in Surrey on an unsuccessful homophobic crusade to keep 'Asha's Two Moms' out of schools before being parachuted into a safe riding in Langley? Ms. Polak has demonstrated shameless ambition and contempt citizens beyond the party-faithful not to mention a lack of compassion for women and children at risk.

Polakite, please... Put some sincerity into your comments and spare us the partisan sales pitch. Mary got into trouble the last time she and Rich tried to manipulate local elections. Was nothing learned?

@macsasquatch

You must realize that there is nothing beyond Hope but resources to be exploited. The people that determine leadership qualities all breath the polluted air of the heavily populated areas. However all is not lost. They are doing their best to pollute every other part of the province or flood it so that it is uninhabitable. Pretty soon we will get leaders from the other climate zones. You think?

Mary Polak?

Please. The same person who's pushing for an overpass through historical farmlands in Milner in the Langley area? I don't think. Add that to the book controversy in Surrey, that cost Surrey taxpayers over a million bucks in court costs, and you've picked another loser.

I think the only people in Bill's list that have a foggy Friday's chance as leader would have to be someone who is not tainted by being part of the current arrogant government of Gordon Campbell. So count out Falcon, Coleman, Abbott, and Hansen. They wouldn't stand a chance with the voters.

Nor would Emerson, after that stunt he pulled when elected as an MP.

The only viable candidates on the list are Carole Taylor and Diane Watts. But there is the small matter of the car accident.

And Carole's too rich.

That's it. No viable candidates for the Liberals.

But it never stopped em before.

Now, if we could just get Carol James to step aside for a new leader..........

Coleman?

Did you really mean Rich Coleman? As our forests minister he was about as bad as they come, and this province has seen some doosies. He was in charge when the Liberals took this forest industry down. If that is the best they have then good riddance.

Reality

The talent pool currently sitting on the government side is pretty suspect, and they are carrying some less than desireable baggage. I suspect that a couple of those named will be lucky if they get re-elected as an MLA, let alone as a leader.

Carole Taylor-too old.
Dianne Watts-too inexperienced
David Emerson-a possibility, but if he didn't win a majority would he cross the floor to the party that did.

I suspect the leader will come from within, but it will come at a price. There will be blood spilled in choosing their new leader and it's quite likely that the Socred, Reform and BC Liberal coalition will lead to some defections.

With the NDP not looking a whole lot better, this could be a good time for the election of some independents.

The dictatorship style of governance needs to be eradicated and the only way to do that is to shun any political party. The "NOHST" campaign has ignited a fire in the electorate and it is now time for us to take it to the next level.

Gawd, Bill

You're usually entertaining, but you totally missed the boat on this one. How can you get so many so wrong?

Who cares that Carole Taylor has no base wherever you think she has? Dianne Watts had nothing to recommend her either except a pretty face and limited experience on council. The media made her into St Georgina and she slew the McCallum dragon without even breathing hard. You think when our failed newswretches at Canvas Goebbels get wound up that they couldn't sell her to every corpse in Mountainvew and Ocean Park?

Naive, Bill, naive...

But there would be competition.

What makes you think Kevin Falcon couldn't be rehabilitated in a flash? A dose of false honesty, a quick break with the Gordo, and all of a sudden, he's not a malingering monkey, he's a contender! With Canvas Goebbels touting his every thought like Sam Sullivan behind Philip Owen's back, he'd be a shoe-in, if it weren't for the other candidates.

And good ol' fresh-face himself, Colon Hansen. Mr squeaky-clean with newly-minted Christian credentials that would be dragged out at the first opportunity to sell him to the Valley, he'd have a record of being "tough on _______ [fill in the blank]" on anything you'd care to name. He's a scrapper with the sharpest elbows in the hockey game they call the Leg. The ribs of both Kevins (Krueger and Falcon), not to mention Christy's are still feeling the pain from their first go-round in 2003 and 2004. He'll try to be seen as the "middle ground" or the compromise candidate.

Part II

Part II

With Kash gone, the party will drag Dave Hayer front and centre to be the sacrificial ethnic lamb. He won't have a chance, but you'll see his name in lights.

However, John Yap will be a serious contender. Find me someone who moves more quietly behind the scenes, yet gets more done. Who's been off message lately? Nobody, while John's been on watch. He's got the credentials with the other 26% of the province whose ancestry wasn't European either, and he's learning plenty at the wheels while everyone else gets to take the fall. another compromise candidate.

George Abbott will not run, much to the regret of the more honest members of the party. One of the few who could restore a bit of dignity to the farce that the Fiberals have become.

However Freddy... er, Kevin Krueger will, as will Barry Penner who will imagine he can single-handedly come down from the clouds to convert the masses (and with Canvas Goebbels help, he could probably go a long way too) and Bill Barisoff, in an attempt to save the party with his own ego, will also perform a Mexican hat dance and leave the party early, having secured his fame for another run at a position with more money and power than that of Speaker. He doesn't really like that job anyway - you can tell.

Ralph Sultan, John Les and John van Dongen will decide that discretion is the better part of valour, and back away quietly without touching their guns.

And Dianne Watts? Never. You can count on that. I know.

More polakski

Come to think about it, the tea party is exactly how she the local nomination in the first place. Every churched fundamentalist in the riding on orders from the pulpit was down buying memberships. Incumbant MLA Lynn Stevens didn't have a chance.

The same bunch replaced MP val meridith with fundamentalist lay preacherman Russ "the deacon" Hebert out in South Surrey White Rock.

There are a lot more of us than them, but they are organized and motivated and we are lazy.

Liberals...

Perhaps Nick Clegg could speak to Michael Ignatieff - to whom, apparently, he is distantly related.

When Canada's Liberals had a chance, in late 2008 and early 2009, to enter into a coalition for the 'good' of the nation and to rid the place of the pestilential Pee Wee, they lost the plot before the play started: Some cooperators; some optimists.

As for BC LIBERALS - there is no such animal – they have lost all sense of the commons, the need to preserve the assets of British Columbia and work for the well-being of its people, the Campbell clique is not a political party at all - it is, in fact a species of plutocratic crime family. I expect, similarly to the situation after the Grant Devine regime in Saskatchewan, that whatever rump of pusillanimous troglodytes remain in the BC Liberal Party after Campbell completes his destruction of it, will find another name for their enterprise.

It is not possible to 'smear' the BC Liberals - they have done that to themselves so comprehensively that their only defenders are individuals like the 'Polakite' creature whose posts here are nothing but a bad joke on himself.

Blind to the irony of his single minded determination to wave the flag for Mary Polak at all costs, he has succeeded in destroying her more comprehensively than anything her 'critics' could say about her would.

Carole Taylor = GRAFT!!!

Dose Someone actually believe that Ms. Taylor would give up her post as a board member of the T.D.Bank(-$75,000 a year + for 12 days work) to take on a thankless job as leader of the opposition. After giving away $350 million a year that we were receiving from the banks and then taking her reward, I don't think she would be willing to put herself under such public scrutiny. Personally I think she should be charged with breach of trust, collusion or some other appropriate action as the taxpayers now have to meet the loss of revenue she gave to the very bank who's board of directors she now sit on.

Hell, I'd run for the job

Hell, I'd run for the job but don't qualify as I'm a lousy liar, don't get smashed and drive drunk, and never wear red mittens

Carole Taylor

If it had to be-it would keep the throne in the 'family' and it certainly explains her recent statement on the hst. Politics at its liberal finest. As you noted, mainstream drools over her. We are speaking about shoes, right?

who will lead the beleaguered B.C. Liberal Party?

What, have we learned nothing? This party and its members are unfit to run anything for the people.

Changing the ringleader won't change the circus acts.

COLEMAN-THE FIX-MAN

Coleman is Campbell's right hand hench man as he axes at programs and people's lives. And something tells me its going to start costing tax payers as the people have had enough abuse and will start holding BC government accountable. As much as Minister Coleman relishes beating down the most vunerable of society something tells me his time is up as Fraxer Institue may have come up with ways to beat down the spirit but forgot about the soul most likely because Fraser Institute members have no soul to speak of.