We can officially anoint Fort Langley/Aldergrove MLA Rich Coleman the most optimistic man in B.C. politics.
Coleman announced last week that he has a "fire in the belly" for the coming election, and he'll be running against the NDP come hell or high water.
Speaking of high water, each day brings a new wave to break against the embattled government of Premier Christy Clark.
Kevin Falcon, John Les, Blair Lekstrom, George Abbott, Mary McNeil, Joan McIntyre, Rob Howard. Since last week, all of those Liberal
MLAs, several of them senior current or former cabinet ministers, have announced they will not be running come spring. It leaves Coleman part of a dwindling crowd of senior Liberal veterans.
Coleman, Mike de Jong and Shirley Bond seem to be among the last long-serving Liberals who have held major portfolios. It's hard to blame those getting out now. This is British Columbia, after all, where we don't just change governments, we chase them from office, pitchforks and torches an optional extra. Just ask Bill Vander Zalm or Glen Clark.
Considering the latest polls, showing the NDP and opposition leader Adrian Dix well above Clark and her dwindling Liberal core, it seems we may very well be heading for a repeat of 2001, or of 1991. But again, we have to say that this is British Columbia. Nothing in politics is predictable west of the Rockies.
Coleman may be counting on the simmering discontent that seems to be bubbling within the upstart B.C. Conservative Party. Or he may simply believe the NDP will do what it has so often done on both national and provincial stages, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Or he may feel he has one of the last safe Liberal seats in B.C., and someone has to pick up the pieces after next spring's election blowout.
