It looks like B.C. voters are rewriting the script.
About a year ago, the 2013 provincial election was shaping up to be a sequel to 1991, complete with an I've-seen-this-somewhere-before storyline. It was a new cast, but the roles they were poised to reprise looked remarkably similar to ones from two decades earlier.
Playing the part of the Socreds, the Liberals were the right-of-centre government nearing their expiry date, while the New Democrats were cast as themselves, with Vancouver-based leader Adrian Dix in the role of Vancouver-based leader Mike Harcourt. The right-of-centre alternative, played by Gordon Wilson's Liberals back in '91, was being filled by John Cummins' Conservatives.
The script called for Dix to lead the NDP to a comfortable victory, with the Conservatives replacing the Liberals in a right-of-centre renewal. Before this sequel got a chance to hit the big screen, however, it went in for a rewrite.
It still looks like the NDP, in the absence of a major gaffe in the campaign's final few days, will assume power, but the coming out party for the Conservatives has been left on the cutting room floor.
Neck-and-neck with the Liberals, and in the neighbourhood of 20 per cent in public opinion polls just a year ago, Cummins' clan has since taken a precipitous fall to single-digit territory. It appears the defectors have gone back to the Liberals, which has allowed the government to close the gap on the NDP, although it likely won't be enough for Christy Clark to retain power.
Two years ago when Cummins was acclaimed as leader, and in the subsequent 12 months, the Conservatives appeared headed toward mainstream acceptance, but somewhere in the midst of all that internal squabbling the wheels fell off.
The momentum stalled to the point where the party doesn't even have candidates in about 30 ridings, and fewer overall than the Greens, which makes it darn near impossible to form government, or even become the official Opposition.
Perhaps the Conservatives are simply experiencing the growing pains many fledgling parties encounter and their breakthrough moment is still four years off. Worst-case scenario is they follow the path taken by the ill-fated provincial Reform party.
Time will only tell, but it's become abundantly clear over the last year that even if the Liberals relinquish control of the legislature, they will still be the party of record on the right side.
