Brad Bennett remembers watching his grandfather W.A.C. Bennett give a stump speech from the back of a train in Dawson Creek.
How does he think his grandfather and father would have done in the age of hashtag activism?
“I can’t imagine my grandfather being on [social media], or my dad,” he says with a laugh in the ballroom of the Fairmont Waterfront where he’s gathered with fellow Liberals to watch the election results.
Bennett says his grandfather and father, Bill Bennett, both B.C. premiers, relied more on “good people and how to spot common sense.”
“I don’t think a good politician pays attention to what’s said on Twitter or gets distracted from their core message,” he told the Courier.
Asked what he thought of the NDP’s campaign approach in this provincial election, Bennett says they dug into the past to try to restore a message of “class warfare.”
Bennett, who is chair of BC Hydro, praised Liberal leader Christy Clark for staying on message. “She’s a great campaigner, one of the best I’ve ever seen and she’s a brilliant communicator.”
Asked if she made any missteps, Bennett says “the campaign was run the way it should have been run. Neither she nor the campaign left anything on the field.”
Who will win the night?
“I think we’re going to win,” he says as the crowd breaks into cheers as television reports that Clark has won her riding.
Courier editor-in-chief Martha Perkins spent election night at the BC Liberals' headquarters at the Fairmont Waterfront.
