British Columbia’s NDP members rolled the dice when they selected Adrian Dix as their leader on Sunday.
No disrespect intended. Mr. Dix is a very intelligent man who believes deeply in all things NDP.
However, he was born two or three decades too late. His passion and fire and brimstone rhetoric would have taken him to great heights back then.
But now, he’s considered to be a throw back to the left-of-left days.
And that is going to cause him no end of trouble in the next provincial election.
As soon as Carole James was chased away from the pride, most political pundits were betting Mike Farnworth would lead the New Democrats out of the desert and into the Promised Land.
The media giants, who are in the know, believed that because Mr. Farnworth was most like Ms. James in that he was the candidate who most represented the centre of the party.
He would be least scary and, therefore, the most attractive to the undecided and those who lost their passion for participating at the polling booths.
On the other hand, Mr. Dix will most likely try to recover and revive the fervor of the blue collar and professional unionized employees.
However, two other things figured in the loss of political momentum – the first being the bomb that was called the NDP leadership race.
What race you say? Exactly!
There was a bunch of guys holding hands singing Kumbaya at different urban centres throughout the province. It was laughable and nobody but diehard New Democrats cared.
Any fire that was created was doused by a B.C. Liberal media campaign that blanketed the province with promises of new policies, programs and funding.
The NDP are caught in a dead calm right now and they better hope for the winds of change to blow up.
