I'm no expert, but here is what I've learned from the upset of the ages, dear reader. Let's face it, maybe three British Columbians in total imagined a Liberal majority of this magnitude. Even the Liberals were avoiding their election night party until it dawned on them mid evening there was a reason to celebrate!
1. Messaging counts! Let's put it this way - if I offered you two kind of ice-cream and called them "Secure Tomorrow" and "Practical Steps", which would you choose? Since when is "practical" even a selling point? We live in a world where the majority of TV viewers pick reality shows - they want improbable outcomes where straining yokels grab the gold against all odds. They want "possible" not "practical".
2. Style and smiles trumps book-readin'. By the end of the campaign I'd seen more than a dozen references to Dix's penchant for books as if we lived in some dark age where we suspiciously eyed readers like they were goblin-people trying to infect our minds with "thoughts". Leave War and Peace on the bus - and go play hockey.
3. Half of us just don't care. No matter how you slice it, half of eligible voters sat on their hands. The Canucks are out of the play-offs, so that isn't an excuse. Precisely what was more important? (And if you stayed home because you don't like anybody, that's no excuse. I don't like anybody either and I still voted!)
4. Waffling makes it worse. No question, Dix made a fatal error when he turned a reasonable position on Kinder-Morgan to an unreasonable one mid-campaign. You could feel the collective air sucked out of his momentum.
5. Politics is no place for a positive campaign. When someone is going for your jugular, standing there with a flower in your hair and reciting the Koran will not help you.
6. Social media is a game changer. Pollsters and pundits spent the last four weeks saying social media was irrelevant. Well the landslide is directly in line with Twitter output and Facebook likes. We only need 140 characters and an Instagram to know how much we love you.
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