Why Jack Layton came to Kamloops

It was an energetic crowd at the Sports Action Lounge this afternoon (Friday), ignoring common wisdom that local candidate Michael Crawford is, at best, a second-place contender.

The set-up for Layton’s pep talk was smart — the room wasn’t too big, not too small. When the doors opened at 4 p.m. sharp all 220 chairs were quickly filled, with another 50 or so standing.

It was a somewhat older demographic, though there were a good number of younger supporters, too, including some high school kids. They were dressed casually for a sunny Friday afternoon. TRU instructor and one-time provincial candidate Tom Friedman had shed his tie. Crawford milled about like a nervous bridegroom, marveling at the efficiency of Layton’s advance team, watching as handlers decided between a chair and a stool for their leader.

They picked the stool.

Asked where else Layton had been that day, Crawford wasn’t sure, but, he told me admiringly, “The man is a machine.” (Layton’s other destination on his two-city-a-day schedule was Esquimalt.)

At 4:31, without an announcement, Layton walked in dressed for comfort in a sweater and slacks, walking with his cane, as his plainclothes RCMP security man carefully scanned the crowd.

Within a couple of minutes, the “next prime minister of Canada” was painting a picture of what Kamloops and Canada would be like under an NDP government. If talk on the street means anything, Crawford has an uphill battle despite Layton’s support. 

Conservative incumbent Cathy McLeod should have little trouble holding the riding. It doesn’t exactly take brilliant punditry to figure that out.

In October 2008, nobody had a clue who McLeod was. She was an appointed candidate, filling a space nobody else seemed to want after the unpopular Betty Hinton decided not to run again.

McLeod had an unimpressive pedigree, with only a dash of small-town political experience before she moved to Kamloops, added to a career in health care.

Leading up to the election, McLeod was supposedly in a neck-and-neck race with Crawford. The Conservatives apparently thought so, too — they targeted Jack Layton and the NDP in local advertising, rather than the Liberals.

McLeod defied the predictions. She sailed to a comfortable 5,000-vote margin over Crawford, with Liberal candidate Ken Sommerfeld a distant third, barely edging out Donovan Cavers of the Greens.

The fly in the ointment was a Liberal vote that disintegrated, boosting Crawford five per cent above what he’d polled two years before, but boosting the Conservative vote even more.

Since then, McLeod has acted nothing like an accidental MP. She does her constituency work, stays out of trouble, wins people over with her amicable personality, and even manages to distance herself from the more objectionable actions of her leader.

B.C., of course, is a tough place for a Conservative to lose a federal election.

Add to that the fact that Stephen Harper seems to do pretty much anything he wants without making Canadians getting really mad at him, and McLeod could probably win re-election if she spent the next three weeks on a beach in Hawaii.

No other elected leader has indicated an interest in showing up in this riding, though Michael Ignatieff has been here a couple of times in the past, and Harper was here briefly six years ago. (Green leader Elizabeth May will pop in a week from Sunday.)

So why would Layton bother with Kamloops?

Layton answered that today when he referred to “the reality” of this riding, which is that Crawford has made two strong showings.

The inference being that maybe, just maybe, the third time will do it.

As one couple left the building, the wife commented, “I’d forgotten he’s such a little guy.”

“But he’s a big fighter,” the husband assured her.