i'm going to throw something out there, though.

bc's a mess as it is. but, if you look at some of the recent by-elections there, the people's party seems to be doing better than any polling would have suggested. i've pointed out previously that the ppc seems to be getting it's vote share from the liberals more than anywhere else, but this is particularly interesting in bc, given the history.

the ppc has a precedent in canadian history, namely the social credit party. they're not identical, but there's some dramatic overlap. there's usually been a party to the right of the conservatives, in canada - it was the merger in the early 00s that was ahistorical.

social credit initially formed governments in alberta, but, dwindled in the middle part of the century. in the end, they were left with pockets of support in rural quebec (the ppc is a splinter party created by an mp from quebec) and in british columbia.

the bc socreds were a powerful political force, but they did eventually dissolve due to internal squabbling, before reorganizing themselves as the bc liberal party. there is a bc conservative party, but it's a minor force. rather, what you have in bc is a coalition between the liberals and conservatives (called the "liberal party") that occurred mostly under periods of socred rule.

that means that a substantive number of liberal voters in bc today came from a political tradition that is actually on the far right - to the right of the conservatives.

so, it would not be surprising if the ppc did outperform their polling results in bc, even if they're not actually competitive anywhere. nor would it be surprising if, in the end, that's what we learn is behind the drop in liberal support in bc.

it's very hard to predict the outcome of an election where four or more parties are competitive because you start creating substantive ballot questions out of things that the media doesn't cover. just don't be surprised if it happens...

the liberals are supposed to do better than this.