Leaders’ blemished records par for the course in British Columbia

Leaders have a surprisingly short shelf life in the cutthroat world of B.C. politics, something Adrian Dix or Christy Clark could learn on Tuesday night when voters pass judgment on them.

Clark, 47, has headed the incumbent Liberals for two years and hopes to lead them to a fourth term in government. It isn't just the polls that are not in her favour — it's history.

As Vancouver Sun political columnist Vaughn Palmer noted recently, British Columbia has had 35 premiers in the 142 years since the province joined Confederation, which works out to roughly one every four years.

The legendary W.A.C. Bennett (Wacky to both critics and admirers) served seven terms and his son, Bill, won three elections, as did Liberal Gordon Campbell, whom Clark replaced.

But Bill Bennett's successor, the faux castle-dwelling gardner Bill Vander Zalm, managed less than five years before resigning in a conflict-of-interest scandal in 1991. His lame-duck replacement, Rita Johnston, presided over an election disaster that put the New Democrats in power and the Bennett dynasty's Social Credit party reduced to seven seats.

Ironically, Vander Zalm resurfaced to lead a voter revolt against the Liberals' hated harmonized sales tax, joining forces with former NDP back-room operative Bill Tieleman to engineer a referendum that led to a repeal of the HST.

But NDP premiers have an even worse track record. The fiery Dave Barrett, who led the party to their first-ever win in 1972, was turfed three years later by the younger Bennett.

[ Related: Yahoo! Exclusive: B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix finds common ground with Stephen Harper ]

Mike Harcourt, the former Vancouver mayor who returned the NDP to power in 1991, was gone four years later. He took responsibility for the so-called Bingogate scandal, involving the improper funneling of money from charity bingo games into party coffers. Harcourt resigned even though he had no connection with the wrongdoing.

Scandal also felled his successor, Glen Clark, who was forced to resign in 1999 over allegations he'd meddled in a casino-licence application for neighbour Dimitrios Pilarinos in return for free renovations on his home and cottage.

Clark was ultimately acquitted of breach-of-trust charges (and in another of those B.C. political ironies has reinvented himself as a senior executive in billionaire Jim Pattison's vast business empire), but the damage was done. The NDP under Ujjal Dosanjh was reduced to two seats in the 2001 election that saw Campbell's Liberals inherit Social Credit's centre-right free-enterprise coalition.

[ Related: B.C. NDP launches new Liberal attack ads ]

Dix, 49, was Clark's chief of staff during Casinogate and became embroiled in the scandal when he tried to cover for his boss by creating a back-dated "memo to file" that appeared to distance the premier from the licence application. Clark fired him and Dix admitted he'd made a mistake, but the incident has figured in negative advertising since he became NDP leader in 2011.

Christy Clark, whose political roots are in the federal Liberal party, was a cabinet minister and deputy premier in Campbell's first government until leaving politics in 2005. Outgoing and engaging compared with the wonkish, somewhat shy Dix, Clark parlayed a successful stint as a popular open-line radio host into a run for the Liberal leadership after fallout from the Liberals' imposition of the HST (breaking a 2009 election promise) forced Campbell out.

She won despite receiving no significant backing from the Liberal caucus, many of whom seem ready to dump her if she delivers anything less than a victory.

[ Full election coverage: B.C. provincial election ]

Whoever wins Tuesday night, Canadians can expect a return to edgier relations with the rest of Canada, compared with Gordon Campbell's conciliatory approach.

Christy Clark has already demonstrated she's closer to Glen Clark when it comes to defending B.C. interests. The NDP's Clark confronted Ottawa on issues such as salmon stocks, and the Liberals' Clark has gone nose-to-nose with Alberta Premier Alison Redford over oil sands bitumen exports. She also hasn't played nicely with other premiers, refusing to sign on to a proposed national energy strategy during a summit last year.

As for Dix, his party's stated opposition to a pipeline expansion that would see more oil sands crude shipped via tanker from Vancouver, and a likely unwillingness to see the Northern Gateway bitumen pipeline go ahead, will put him at odds with both Edmonton and Ottawa. The party's go-slow approach to resource development won't sit well with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government.