The Written Word
for February 13, 2000

The perils of predicting political outcomes are many indeed but they are magnified beyond belief when dealing with the NDP, British Columbia chapter. I have, in the course of the past six months, confidently predicted the winner to be Joy McPhail, Gordon Wilson and Ujjal Dosanjh. Now there is, of course, some merit to a wide variety of selections because as long as you include in your many predictions every possible winner you will always have a successful prediction to point to.

I predicted Joy McPhail in the early going because I thought she would have the labour vote tied up and since that represents approximately 25% of the automatic delegates plus all union people selected as delegates from constituencies I didn’t see how she could go wrong. Well, she did go wrong. What originally looked like a very timely resignation and long time holiday is Spain turned out to be a disaster. She needed to be here working when she was there playing.

Gordon Wilson became my choice after Joy McPhail was out because it looked to me as if he had inherited her mantle as the workingman’s friend. Dave Barrett endorsed him and I thought that would be a very powerful if not insurmountable advantage.

I was wrong on a couple of counts. I didn’t realize just how close Barrett was to Glen Clark and how that would assist Wilson in a minor way it would hurt him big time in others. I thought that the convention would be swayed by the ability of Wilson to take on Gordon Campbell and underestimated the sense amongst many NDPers that he was a johnny-come-lately opportunist.

As I write this I’m predicting a win for Ujjal Dosanjh but am I overlooking something? Without question Mr Dosanjh has the lead in constituency selected delegates but can he win on the first ballot? That depends upon those establishment delegates I referred to above. Unless Mr Dosanjh has about 75% of the constituency delegates he perhaps can’t make it on ballot #1 and if he can’t, a new convention life is born. For if he needs, let us say, 100 votes, he may just not have the room to grow, may have lost precious momentum, and we may be looking back again at Mr Wilson.

Or am I overlooking the chances of Corky Evans if Dosanjh can’t make it on the first ballot? Corky is the only one who is clean as a whistle on the delegate issue. Not only did he refuse to get one dollar instant members, he insisted that any member signed up for him shell out 10 bucks.

I must say that I have hitherto discounted the possibility of a premier named Corky but the one thing no one can assess in advance is the mood of the convention.

The whole delegate issue stinks. It has dragged the NDP down to a new low just when it was thought that they could go no lower. If Dosanjh falls short on the first ballot, will there be enough people refusing to hold their noses any longer deciding that at least Corky is the clean way to go?

So now we have it all on the record. No matter who wins I will have some documentary evidence of my having picked him.

I think I must make a more honest commitment than that, though. Damon Runyan once said "The race is not necessarily to the swift nor the contest to the strong – but that’s the way to bet." With that in mind I predict a close first round victory for Ujjal Dosanjh … But I’ll thank you not to remind me of this should it turn out differently.