Signs from an election

When the campaign started in North Island I mentioned to my son that, judging from the signs, it looked to be all Claire Trevena in Campbell River, except for some empty lots.  He said, "That's not surprising. It's embarrassing to be a BCLiberal these days."
That didn't change for about two weeks, but shortly after the "debate" we started to see the occasional Facey lawn sign, and by the end of the campaign there were quite a few. Even so, the Trevena signs, all on private property, still outnumbered them about 5 to 1.
But it was an indication that things were going to be tighter than we could have predicted earlier in the campaign, and in the end the signs didn't even tell an accurate story:
Claire's margin of victory was down somewhat from last time,  50.7% for Claire (BCNDP), versus 42.16% for Facey (BCLiberal), and 7.14% for Bray (Conservative).
Once again, Campbell River went BCLiberal by a small margin.
Tellingly, Claire won big in the communities of the north and on the islands.

So what happened? I believe it's a different story in Campbell River than it is in the rest of the constituency.

Campbell River: I like the theory that what happend here is another manifestation of the "10-second Socred" phenomenon, a blast from the '50s and '60s, when we could never figure out why the between-elections-unpopular WAC Bennett was always re-elected with a majority, and why, once the election had passed, one could never find anyone who had voted for his party.
Apparently, in this election even the pipe dreams of the BCLiberal platform were more a more comfortable fit for many voters than the NDP promise of "Change for the better, one practical step at a time". This in spite of the still-unresolved BC Rail scandal, the HST debacle, the fantasy balanced budget, the culture of cronyism... and we could go on and on.
But there was more to it than that. The BCLiberal campaign slimed NDP leader Adrian Dix so vigorously that, by the end, BCLiberal partisans had no trouble publicly associating him with fraud. Some of that stuck.  In a similar vein, the Facey campaign distorted Claire's record and positions so thoroughly in its advertising that her advocacy for a Campbell River hospital morphed into a claim that the new hospital would be shelved if an NDP government was returned. Her work for the BBC turned into a "she's not from here" meme, and Catalyst closing the Elk Falls pulp mill magically became her fault. I don't think the print advertising to this effect made much of a difference, especially after the front-page story in the Courier-Islander that quoted Claire accusing Nick Facey of lying, but local radio ads on this theme, run just before the election, certainly changed some votes.
I wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Campbell River Mirror after the last Facey ad they published:  
As one of his former teachers, I'm pleased that Mr. Facey "thoroughly benefited" from the education he received in Campbell River.
However, it appears that he didn't always pay attention: I'll bet not one of his Social Studies teachers ever said to him, "It's fine to distort the record of a political opponent for political gain." He acquired that idea on his own.
In case he just missed the lesson, he should know that disagreement is is the lifeblood of democracy, but distortion is disrespectful of the system, and inevitably leads to cynicism and less participation.
Surely he isn't in favour of either!
It would have come out just after the election; unfortunately, they chose not to publish it.

Rest of the constituency: The story there is Claire's personal and ongoing relationships with the communities. Voters in the north know that Claire has really worked on their economic issues, like the Port Alice mill. The First Nations know from experience they have Claire's ear. And they really worry about the environment, about oil tankers, and climate change, and salmon, and the reckless attitude the BCLiberals have towards almost any development. 
That, and the voters there know Claire, who has represented them well for 8 years. By contrast, Facey was and is Campbell River, and so are almost all of his supporters.

And that's why Claire beat Facey by just over 2000 votes.

As for the provincial results... I predict it will be a long time before any party in BC will again treat BC voters like the rational adults we all claim we are.  Sad, really.