Saccharine and slightly Sesame Street, Kevin Falcon's "three Ls" of leadership - listening, learning and leading - sound like the Liberal MLA would rather run a yoga boot camp than the province of B.C.
More interesting and more pertinent is the silent, fourth L in Falcon's Kumbaya concoction - looking North. From the stomach-churningly earnest the "North needs Kevin" full-page ad that ran Nov. 27 in the Citizen to the second-half campaign kick-off he offered this city four days later, Falcon started his race to replace premier Campbell so heavily draped in Prince George/northern B.C. ornamentation he could have entered himself in the Festival of Trees.
In addition to the now de rigueur handwringing HST mea culpas - Falcon floated moving up the referendum and, revenues permitting, eventually reducing the much-despised tax by two per cent - the ex-B.C. health minister gave a laundry-list of northern B.C. promises.
Progress on the long-petrified wood innovation centre. Northern-Medical Program-style training for engineers. Dollars for the Pine Pass and the Port of Prince Rupert.
Admittedly, Falcon's love affair with the North isn't a sudden infatuation - he's known prominent city entrepreneur Dan McLaren for 25 years.
But he's not the only Liberal leadership looking for a little paint-on P.G. rural sheen. George Abbott plans to visit the city and offered the campaign's first regional telephone town hall for party faithful in the Interior and northern B.C. Mike de Jong also visited this weekend.
So what makes Prince George so special, apart from the crisp, pristine winter air?
Part of it no doubt is candidates hopes for wooing Prince George's two MLAs and cabinet heavyweights Pat Bell and Shirley Bond. Nechako Lakes MLA John Rustad chose to back Abbott; his colleagues to the east so far remain above the fray, "waiting and watching" as Bell put it.
However, it's easy to overstate the importance of a tip of the hat for Bell or Bond. While Falcon and Abbott have been making like Santa and drawing up lists of MLAs in their corner, de Jong's camp isn't gathering names.
Their reason may be, while endorsements will be important, the changes to the leadership nomination process will make the 90-day campaign far more arduous and complicated than simply lining up Liberal luminaries.
And, while not a particularly large piece of puzzle, Prince George could could be a key part of the picture.
When Gordon Campbell seized the party helm 17 years ago, he took 4,141 of 6,540 votes in a telephone ballot.
The Feb. 26 vote for Liberal leader - and B.C. premier for the next two years - may not respond to such tactics. On Feb. 12, party members are set to vote on a proposal, endorsed by unanimous vote of the 30-strong party executive council, to change to a weighted preferential ballot.
It's not a simple process. Each of B.C.'s 85 ridings will have 100 points up for grabs with each candidate given a portion of those points based on the percentage of Liberal members who vote for them.
But it's likely none of the current four candidates - and the picture gets considerably more messy if former Liberal power Christy Clark enters the race - will reach the magic number of 4,251 points (half of the 8,500 up for grabs, plus one) on the first ballot.
As a result, Liberal party members will rank the candidates in order of preference and, for the second ballot, the last-place candidate will be eliminated, and their votes re-distributed to the remaining candidates based on their second choice.
If no one reaches 4,251 on the second ballot, the second-last candidate is eliminated and so on until someone crosses the threshold.
That means the next Liberal leader, whoever they may be, will be forced to engage in old-fashioned retail politics, shaking hands and meeting members in order to be that first - and second - choice. And while there are more ridings in the lower mainland, reaching every last one of the party faithful in all 85 ridings becomes crucial.
It also has to be done to a budget, with a cap of $450,000 put in place by Liberal Party HQ on campaign expenditures.
That makes Prince George a tempting stop: candidates can hit two large ridings, with commiserate geographic reach, in one go and show off their love of rural B.C. to, as UNBC political scientist Jason Morris put it, put out the message they aren't captives to the Lower Mainland vote.
The road to the premiership won't necessarily run through Prince George - but it is a side trip worth taking.
