Christy Clark had a very powerful and impressive performance this morning.

A few thoughts from Christy Clark’s announcement from this morning:

• Her campaigns theme as someone who has escaped the bubble of Victoria is going to be a key tactic to try and establish a contrast between her and her competitors.  It is smart, as guilt by association to Gordon Campbell and the levers of an out of touch government is going to hit every person running from within the caucus.

• The HST free vote is brilliant.  Save some money and time, and let the MLAs do what we already know their constituents are directing them to do.  Moving up a referendum as some of her opponents have promised is clearly not good enough.  Clark gets how much of a weight the tax is around the necks of every BC Liberal MLA fighting for re-election, and she has shown that she wants it off the table long before she calls an election.  Falcon’s attempt to blunt the position by saying that a decision should come by way of the public through an expensive referendum is weak…extremely weak.

• Clark was smooth, enthusiastic and quite frankly a breath of fresh air from those previous announcements that all seemed to have the air of the status quo.  Speaking to a few NDP organizers and staff people this morning, I discovered that Clark might just be the first candidate that is actually feared from within the party.

• I have a feeling that Clark’s platform is going to be designed from a centrist, federal Liberal point of view, which most definitely will define her in comparison to those that have declared.  Abbott might be the most left leaning of the competition, but the taint of all the decisions he was complicit in is going to be very harmful in a general election.  Clark is going to play a campaign that designs policies that will give the BC Liberals a fighting chance to get back into the game and in line with the current sentiment of the public.

• Who cares how many MLAs show up to the announcement?  Caucus support is always trumped up in the media, but ultimately has a far smaller impact that is usually portrayed.  And being outside of the party for so long, it makes perfect sense that she would have the least amount of in-caucus support.

• Clark once again needs to sign up enough new and already existing members to get past the first ballot.  Then, she needs to start emphasizing what everyone within the party knows, but many are unwilling to admit – that she is the only one who has a shot of winning an election.

• The competitors are going to try and nail down Christy to stick around in the party, win or lose.  This is what Michael Ignatieff had to endure in the 2006 federal Liberal leadership campaign.  It took guts for her to say that she doesn’t have a paycheque to fall back on, therefore justifying her “on-leave” status with CKNW.  I don’t think that this is a strong line of attack in terms of doing that much damage to Clark’s appeal outside of the zealots who aren’t concerned with the notion of electoral victory.

• She complimented Gordon Campbell, which is fine for today.  Beyond this point, however, she would be smart to stop mentioning the man.

That’s all the thoughts that I have on today’s Clark announcement.  From the outside of the party (I am far from a supporter as most readers are aware), the BC Liberals would be wise to look at Clark as the one that will continue the BC Liberal reign in power – that should be their first consideration if winning is something considered important.