To hear him tell it, B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix is not much of an orator.
"The NDP in its history has had many great leaders," he said to a crowd of supporters Wednesday night, listing off names such as Bob Strachan, Dave Barrett, Mike Harcourt and Joy MacPhail. "All of those people have one thing in common - they're better speakers than I am."
But the overflow crowd who came to celebrate the official opening of the North Nechako Road campaign office for local NDP candidates Bobby Deepak and Sherry Ogasawara didn't seem to mind his self-proclaimed weakness.
Dix was met with cheers when he expressed his pride in the candidates for Prince George-Valemount and Prince George-Mackenzie.
"What we have here in Prince George are outstanding candidates. Deeply committed to the community, representing the community, who are going to do a great job as MLAs after the election if we do our job right," he said, adding that the task ahead of them was to bring forward a message of hope and prove that intelligence and heart could co-exist in politics. "That's what our candidates are about. They're outstanding people, they contributed and sacrificed a lot, they've been candidates a long time."
Expecting an earlier election call, Ogasawara and Deepak were nominated last April.
But Ogasawara - challenging incumbent MLA Shirley Bond for the Prince George-Valemount seat - said she's thankful for the breathing room.
"From the outset and looking forward it seemed like lots of time. It just seemed like we had this whole entire year and I have to tell you the year has flown by so quickly," she said. "It's been filled with a tremendous amount of activity."
That activity is only going to continue once the writ for the May 14 election has dropped, but Ogasawara is looking forward to it for a number of reasons - one of which being a more focused workload.
"I have a full-time job that I'm working at currently and trying to balance the demands of also being a candidate has been challenging. And also [the demands] as a mother as well," she said.
Deepak was enthused about the strong turnout for their campaign kickoff, that broke up with supporters carrying out bright orange lawn signs.
"It shows that people are ready and they're hungry for change," he said.
That enthusiasm in the local NDP base doesn't mean the candidates are going to rest on their laurels.
"It doesn't make us complacent," Deepak said. "We're going to continue to work hard and continue to bring forward positive ideas."
A rebuff of negativity in campaigning was a central theme in Dix's address to a group that included Nechako Lakes candidate Sussanne Skidmore-Hewlett and forestry critic Norm Macdonald.
"What our candidates are about, I think, and what our campaign is about, is change for the better in politics as well. I think peope are tired of the same old political stuff, tired of the personal attacks, tired of people who would rather divide for their own benefit than unite as a community," Dix said.
