Mov ers & Shaker s PREMIER CHRISTY CLARK (BRITISH COLUMBIA)
Kathleen Cross
Marjorie Griffin Cohen Doug McArthur Of course, it must be said that while her gen-
der was, as Shelly Frallic of the Vancouver Sun suggested, ‘the elephant in the room’ that no one mentioned, it was certainly implied by some of the attacks on her, and may have offended some Liber- als enough to have swung the last few votes.
Marjorie Griffin Cohen: I don’t really know. All in all, these were relatively mild ‘attacks,’ and since she has given them each significant ministries, the at- tacks were not enough to wound.
Doug McArthur: They were what they had to do given her positioning and the division in the party. It almost worked.
Jeanette Ashe: She won – so they weren’t enough and didn’t really help.
5. Where did her support come from? Why was that important? Kathleen Cross: All of her support came from the party membership. She had almost no sup- port from within the party caucus, with only one backbencher publicly supporting her. No Cabi- net ministers or senior party actors supported her. Clearly the party machinery was not enthusiastic about her candidacy! Part of that could have been her decision to leave the government. But the spectacle of support from the member- ship with none from the senior party people shows a significant disconnect between the party and its members. Even the other front-runners, Falcon and Abbott, seemed to not recognize this.
Marjorie Griffin Cohen: Her support was fairly widespread among the membership of the par- ty. But she only won on the 3rd round of vote counts, so it was close. The fact that it was not
12 Campaigns & Elections | Canadian Edition
Jeanette Ashe
centred in a particular area of the province is im- portant -- particularly going into the election.
Doug McArthur: She got her support from a lot of new members who she recruited by simply show- ing up at events and in coffee shops and drawing on her star appeal, which sold memberships. The other was form Liberals angry and frustrated at the Campbell Government. These were both impor- tant because she was in this way able to divide the vote between us and them.
Jeanette Ashe: Much of her support came from new sign-ups in the lower mainland and on the island, which won her the leadership race.
6. Who didn’t she win over? And will that hurt her as Premier or not? Kathleen Cross: I think she will have a tough job as premier because of her lack of support within caucus. This is not unusual in BC, and certainly not unusual for a woman politician. However she is a shrewd politician and has already begun ap- pointing top officials who will appeal to caucus and the business community, and who represent the fiscal right-wing of the party. This may help her leadership if she is seen as implementing the same policies as Kevin Falcon would have, while maintaining popular appeal. Her problems will come when she tries to put her own priorities in government.
Marjorie Griffin Cohen: She is frequently billed as to the ‘left’ of the Liberal party. This may disaf- fect the right of the party during the election. She does need to worry about the rise of the Con- servative Party and the possibility that this could seriously split the votes on the right of the political spectrum during the next election.
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