The mysterious strategy of Carole James

The BC electorate will travel to the ballot boxes in May, ready to take pencil to paper and place an X in the space beside the candidate that best suits their mood.

With BC now using a fixed election date system, the May 17th election could hardly be considered a surprise or snap call, yet for all intents and purposes the NDP which with three members of the legislature (one retiring heading off to a socialist sunset) is the opposition, seem to be acting as though it's all a surprise.

Carole James, The leader of the party who has held the job for a year now, but only now will contest a seat, has been rather secretive about what an NDP government might offer the people. Her much used refrain has been "wait for our platform", a slogan that has been used over and over again in the last three months.

Asked if she would re-open schools that were closed we're told to "wait for the platform", reverse the controversial social services cuts of the past "wait for the platform", pick an issue and she won't express an opinion. Instead she holds the cards close to the vest, the NDP protecting their chips as a priceless commodity to be used only when the time is right.

It's a situation that has not escaped the media, which in BC is like a red flag to a bull. For a sample of the talk show take on the NDP non-campaign, check out CKNW and the Bill Good show for Friday, March 18, the 10-11 AM hour featured a panel discussion with Vaughn Palmer and Keith Baldry, who both pointed out some problems with the NDP strategy so far.

Now while it may be wise to keep their agenda wrapped up with that shiny bow, the NDP runs the risk of revealing a platform that for all intents and purposes have no relevance to the current situation.

The Liberals have been busy distributing the gains of their parsimonious ways of the last four years. Schools suddenly have more money for upgrading, contracts with support workers get settled with little to no strike action. Past social engineering experiments get tweaked a bit to give them a more humane face. Grand dreams are announced and positive developments in the "regions" (remember when it was the heartland? don't hear that so much anymore) are trumpeted on a daily basis. Praise is heaped upon the government from afar and star candidates arrive on the scene for the Liberals to take away the sting of the many cabinet members that have chosen to move on to private life.

The NDP have even found themselves losing out on the gender issue, at the moment the Liberals seem to be attracting far more enticing female candidates to the campaign than the NDP, a situation that may finally resolve the gender gap problem the Liberals suffered. While they aren't overwhelming favourites with females by a long shot, the have closed the gap between themselves and the NDP to just 7 per cent, quite a change from a few short years ago.

The NDP campaign has been almost a whisper campaign, their candidates get nominated in the local ridings make a bit of a splash for a few days and then return to the hard slogging of trying to get elected. With no intense media coverage of the leader who seems to be almost a shadow figure at times, whatever message the NDP might wish to be getting across is going for naught.

Time and time again we are told that once the campaign is officially under way we will hear more from the NDP and its recalcitrant leader, one wonders just how far along the way to May 17th we will have to wait.

The Liberals most likely will form another government, the NDP seems to be rather disorganized and unable to capitalize on past mistakes and perceptions of the competition. While most of the province recovers nicely from the tough times, there are still pockets of BC where times are not very good, where jobs are not plentiful and where the Liberal largesse does not shine. There is room for a larger NDP presence in the Legislature but the people of BC need to know just what it is the party is all about now, is it the same party of the Glen Clark era or have they moved on from those days?

There is a place in BC for an alternative view of life as opposed to the Liberal agenda and if crafted properly, it may even attract some voters to the ballot box. But only if they actually know what that alternative might be.

The first significant poll of the campaign came out on Thursday, in it the Liberals under Campbell received the support of 46% of the sample, while the NDP garnered 39% under James. That same poll holds one bit of good news for James, while only 42% which feel Gordon Campbell is a good leader for the Liberals, 50% percent of those that replied said she is doing a good job as leader of the NDP.

Makes you wonder what her number might be if we ever actually get to learn something about her.