6 hours Ago By Massey Padgham
Article content VICTORIA — For the first half of this election campaign, Premier David Eby and his New Democrats launched a major drive to discredit John Rustad and open up a lead over the Conservatives. They got so caught up in the negatives, it overshadowed the positive aspects of the NDP campaign. During the radio debate, Eby devoted more energy to attacking the Conservatives than to promoting NDP promises and programs.
At one point, the NDP leader tried to distract Rustad by handing him a printout of an ill-advised comment from a Conservative candidate. Rustad politely pushed it back. Eby demanded he respond.
He didn’t. Premiers, especially ones as controlling as Eby, expect to get what they want with a snap of the fingers. It doesn’t work that way in an election campaign.
On the day after the debate, the New Democrats released their election platform. Though running to more than 60 pages, it was light on news. It was top heavy with twice as many disparaging references to Rustad as favourable references to Eby.
Yet after two weeks of the campaign, the opinion polls show what they indicated at the outset. After making allowances for margins of error, the two main parties are locked in a dead heat. How was this possible? NDP supporters asked themselves.
They’d done all they could to portray Rustad as a kook leading a band of crackpots. They’d demanded that Rustad dump a half dozen of the worst offenders and disavow the rest, including some of his own comments. Yet here they were, running even with a party that barely existed when Eby took the oath of office as premier two years ago.
The second guessing started with a realization that stupid comments, dredged from the social media cesspits, weren’t as decisive to voters as, say, the latest examples of emergency room closures, public disorder, open drug use, or the high cost of living. There was also a dawning awareness that Eby might not be the saviour the party thought he was, when virtually the entire cabinet, caucus and party establishment designated him as “the one” back in 2022. As one longtime NDP supporter put it in an anxious phone call this week, “we could actually lose this war.
” The growing sense of panic manifested itself in an act of desperation. The NDP went to court to try to force Chief Electoral Officer Anton Boegman’s hand to designate Rustad’s party as the “B.C.
Conservatives,” to distance it from the federal party of the same name. Boegman is an independent officer of the legislature and deserving of respect, not petty, self-serving court challenges in the middle of an election campaign. For the second half of the campaign, New Democrats must be hoping that Eby will show more enthusiasm for the NDP’s record while confining his attacks to more recent Rustad foibles — like the proposal to deliver auto insurance into the hands of private industry.
The Conservatives made it to the halfway point of the campaign without losing any ground to the NDP attacks. Though the party had less money and fewer resources than the NDP, it managed some effective ads. One linked Eby to the unpopular Justin Trudeau government.
Party leader Rustad didn’t let himself get rattled by Eby, didn’t disavow any of his candidates, and remained focused on the rollout of his promises and platform. But the polls identified a big challenge for the Conservatives when it comes to leadership comparisons. Eby had a better approval rating than Rustad and more respondents saw him as the preferred choice for premier.
Eby has the more prominent public record as opposition critic, senior cabinet minister and now the head of government. Though Rustad has served in the legislature almost twice as long as Eby, he had little impact on the public record before he took up the Conservative leadership last year. He played it safe in the radio debate, risking little, and managing a draw.
The TV debate is a riskier forum. Appearances matter more. Eby is better at using the medium.
But Rustad can use the exposure to get more people to start seeing him as a premier, well prepared and ready to govern. Green Leader Sonia Furstenau had a good week, presenting herself as a thoughtful alternative to the two main leaders. Her best-case scenario is where neither the New Democrats nor the Conservatives win a majority and the Greens hold the balance of power, maybe in partnership with an independent or two.
Neither of the major leaders has a bad word to say about her. Why would they? If the polls hold, she may be right. But even in a race as tight as this one, the New Democrats have proven advantages: Better organization, more campaign workers and a base of voting support that is spread more evenly around the province.
In the 1996 election, the NDP managed to win more seats and a governing majority with a smaller share of the popular vote than the B.C. Liberals.
In a close finish, those factors could give them the edge this time around as well. [email protected].
