So our new Member of Parliament, Blair Wilson, says he's "entertaining" the possibility of becoming the 12th entrant in the increasingly-crowded race to become leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
It certainly is an entertaining idea - that laughing sound you hear across the constituency proves it.
Wilson may well turn out to be an effective MP and a dynamic member of the Liberal Party in years to come. As our voice in Ottawa, we should certainly hope he succeeds, since his success will hopefully benefit the people of this riding.
It's nice to have a candidate from the west, too - one who doesn't think they burn crosses in Prince George, that is.
But in a race with way too many people running already, Wilson isn't even a novelty candidate. Not only is he a unilingual westerner as far removed from the party power base as you can get, he's barely been in Ottawa long enough to find the bathrooms on Parliament Hill.
Apparently he's having trouble finding his office phones, too, since reporters at three different community newspapers in his riding haven't been able to actually speak to him about this story after a week and a half of trying.
So why on earth is he even considering the possibility?
This. The publicity. Not so much the community press (hence the lack of return calls) as that headline he got in the Vancouver Sun, I suspect. Faced with a fresh-faced government dominating the headlines, it's hard for a rookie MP from the opposition benches to get his name in the papers without a good hook.
And beyond the publicity is the internal politics of his party. Making a play early in the leadership race, even without a hope of winning, is a career move.
As a rookie MP, his clout with the next leader of the party is negligible. As a potential rival for support in the race, he might just be in a position to do that new leader a favour at convention time - and reap the rewards after.
Unfortunately, he still has to get re-elected here - and as I recall, his margin was a little tight a few months ago. With a strong-looking Tory government rising in the polls and no apparent saviour coming out of the Liberal leadership race, Wilson is not exactly a lock to keep his seat the next time we go to the polls.
Especially since local Conservative candidate John Weston is taking a play right out of Wilson's own book as a defeated candidate, keeping a high profile in the riding, trumpeting the government's good news to the locals and essentially offering himself as a conduit to the government that Wilson, as an opposition MP, can't deliver.
If I were Wilson I'd worry about tending my riding rather than getting too far into the internal party politics. Otherwise his career as an MP could be short-lived.
