The B.C. Liberals and B.C. NDP have played political football with the 2010 Olympics for years but in the election campaign, both parties took a time out.

In a tense economic climate, there's no point warring over a definite fiscal stimulus, said political scientist Norman Ruff.

Early studies suggested the Games will bring as much as $10.7 billion in benefits to the province, though an updated study is expected to be released later this year.

“It's not something the parties have put on the agenda and the reason is simple. It goes back to the Greeks; bread and circuses are always popular,” said Ruff. “And you can't get more circus than the Olympics.”

The economic stimulus of the Olympics has won over most skeptics so trumpeting them would have been stating the obvious, said Finance Minister Colin Hansen.

The Games sell themselves, Hansen said, and there's little room for Games naysayers.

“It's such a good news story,” said Hansen.

That has been a harder message to sell outside the Lower Mainland, where there is less of a sense the Games will provide any economic benefit.

Hansen said he has tried to dispel that myth by pointing to the many programs funded through 2010 Legacies Now, a provincial program designed to make sure everyone benefits from the Games.

A poll conducted by The Canadian Press and Harris/Decima in January suggested opinion outside the Lower Mainland was almost evenly divided as to whether the Olympics will bring more benefits than drawbacks.

“Olympics, the B.C. Place roof -- all come before forestry,” local Steelworkers Union president Bruce Gardner told NDP leader Carole James during a campaign stop in Grand Forks, B.C.

James drew Liberal fire on Monday for a picture posted on the NDP's Flickr account showing James posing with three DJs wearing anti-Olympic T-shirts bearing the slogan Resist 2010 Bitches.

“Quite simply, these posed photos are unbecoming of an individual who wants to be premier and British Columbia's chief salesperson to the world in 2010,” Hansen said in a news release.

James said in a scrum Monday that the T-shirts were jokes.

“If anyone is concerned they have never listened to that radio station. They poke fun. The hosts are irreverent and they were wearing the T-shirts. They made it clear on air it was a joke. Anyone who is concerned doesn't have a sense of humour.”

Distaste for the amount of money being spent on the Lower Mainland was a message being heard loud and clear by the NDP, said the party's campaign manager, Gerry Scott.

“There are people in many communities who feel quite alienated from the Olympics and that I think was really unnecessary,” said Scott.

While in the lead-up to the campaign the NDP railed about cost overruns and a lack of transparency around the Games, they have avoided using the Olympics as a direct rallying cry.

Scott said that's implicit in their messaging around Campbell's record.

“It's part of a bigger thing where there hasn't been the accountability, there hasn't been the kind of openness that we call for, but it's all part of that narrative of the premier's style in government,” he said.

Political consultant Brad Zubyk said he thought that if the Games could have been used to connect with voters, it would have been used by one side or the other.

“The problem is the Liberals know they win on the economy . . . and the NDP has another basket of issues and they do better if they talk about those,” he said.

“It may be a case of the Olympic issue not being cut or dry enough for anyone to talk about with confidence.”

In the research his firm has done, the Games just aren't a vote-getting issue, said Angus Reid Strategies pollster Hamish Marshall.

Their numbers suggest people who are supportive of the Games are supportive of the Liberals and people who support the NDP tend to be less connected to the Games, he said.

“If you associate yourself with the Olympics, it doesn't open up another big vote pool for you,” he said.

It's not the first time the Games have been avoided in an election campaign.

Stephanie Levitz reports for The Canadian Press.