"And here's to you, Mr. Vander Zalm, Jesus loves you more than you will know..."

After the crash and burn candidacy of Mary Polak in Surrey-Panorama Ridge, I would have thought that the B.C. Liberals would have learned something about nominating candidates from the "values" crowd. Unfortunately, for North Vancouver-Seymour MLA Dan Jarvis and the remnants of the moderate wing of the caucus, the values crowd are still looking to bully their way in.

In some respects, courting the likes of Mary Polak and Cindy Silver may constitute strategic thinking for Gordon Campbell, the NDP has pushed the polls to the margin of error, leaving next to nothing in the middle. The Green Party is hanging on to its true believers and most of the "f**k 'em all" voters, which could do the number on the Liberals they did on the NDP in the close races of 2001. All that's left is the 5% in the hands of Social Credit, B.C. Reform, Unity B.C., and whatever else is splintering on the right.

However, for every seat in the suburban Lower Mainland or the Interior where the Liberals might rack up bigger numbers for taking on "f*gg*ts" and "f*m*n*z*s", they risk being dismissed from several seats on Vancouver Island and in the City of Vancouver. Running candidates with backgrounds in organizations like Focus on the Family, in the least religious province in Canada is not necessarily a bright idea.

People will tolerate a certain amount of bullsh*t, which the Campberals have shovelled out consistently for the past four years, if it means keeping the scary NDP boogeyman on the Opposition benches. However, once a side of hate-mongering is added to many British Columbians' serving of bullsh*t, the boogeyman starts to come off looking pretty reasonable.

Update (01/13/05): No 'Silver' lining for Cindy, as Jarivs wins handily.