I’m in Canada right now, and the BC Provincial democrats put up Carole James as their leader again. For God’s sakes guys, get it together.

I’ve worked for the Provincial government during an election. Seventy per cent of voters cast their ballots according to their favorite party. An additional fifteen per cent vote based on a single issue, and the remainder actually scrutinize their candidate’s platform. So while current Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell has an extremely low popularity rating, according to an Angus Reid poll it still looks like he’ll take the cake again.

The problem is that Carole James’ bulldog tactics are great for an opposition leader, but her larger-than-life scowls do little to encourage bipartisan legislation and business partnerships. Her campaign slogan: “Always ready to go to bat for people like you.” Whoever wrote this messaging should be demoted. It’s like saying, “Don’t worry minorities, I’ll speak for you.”

But the problem is that if you let a bulldog speak for you, she’s just going to bite the hand that feeds you. Only 19 per cent of those polled believe James is prepared to fix the economic crisis. My father just got laid off after working as an aeronautical engineer for more than 40 years. When they’re laying off military engineers, you need to get worried.

When I left BC there was talk of Gregor Robertson or Rob Fleming being groomed as the next Democratic party leader. Robertson started Happy Planet organic juice company - a successful green business owner with distribution in every major grocery and health food store. Fleming is a moderate liberal, former Victoria City Councillor and avid volunteer on homelessness issues. So why has the party passed up eager green capitalists for a waning unionist?

I assume it’s because the people that vote in the Provincial election don’t vote in the Democratic party’s leadership race.

How does it even work? Is the Democratic leader chosen by party members attending the AGM or is it simply the candidate that sells the most memberships? In the US, it depends on the party. How many CUPE, HEU and Teacher’s Federation members also buy Democratic party memberships?

I worked for the BC Government, I attended a political campaign school and I’ve even written advertising for the single transferable vote system and I still don’t know how each of the provincial parties choose leaders. And if I don’t know how it works, most of the population is probably at a loss as well.

I figure all it would take to elect a new party leader would be a couple thousand dollars for the nomination fee, calendaring press conferences and event appearances, a decent political flow chart, some Google Calendar alerts, an SMS text campaign and a couple thousand PayPal transactions for party memberships. Is this true?

Because honestly, from what I’ve seen, regardless of who gets the leadership spot, there are only 2 camps of behind-the-scenes politicos making the decisions anyways. In other words, the point might not be to run the most qualified candidate. It might just be to win.