A week until the gloriously demented province of British Columbia votes

Squeeee! This will be my very first provincial election, and my very first chance to change... well, nothing really. Ignore all that crap about the election tightening: the New Democrats are still a shoe-in. That's unusually boring for a province whose politics are usually so reliably wacky. No other province's political history can hold a candle to us in the loony tunes department. 

I deliberately chose the word wacky, because in 1952 British Columbians made a guy known as "Wacky Bennet" Premier. He dominated politics for two decades before being defeated by, in his words, "the socialist hordes at the gates of British Columbia." When socialist horde-master general Dave Barrett was informed that he'd won the election, he took off his shoes, performed an electric guitar slide, informed a crowd of supporters that the NDP were "here for a good time", and instated free everything. Three years later, he was thrown out of office by Wacky's son. He continued on as leader of the NDP until 1983, after he had to be physically removed from the legislature for acting like a jackass.

I'm writing this because I just read that the 1994 Liberal Party leadership contest was between incumbent Gordon Wilson, Gordon Gibson and Gordon Campbell. Unfortunately there was a clear and successful winner, so we can't call it a Gordian knot. Damn.

Gordon Wilson was actually in the news recently. He left the Liberal Party after they forced him from the top spot for having an affair with a member of the shadow cabinet, but he eventually forgave them. Yesterday.

Okay I'll shut up.