The BC Libs have set the rules to replace Gordon Campbell…kind of.

The plan is to use a riding-by-riding weighted point system, similar to how the federal Tories picked Harper and how the Ontario Tories picked Hudak. It’s also the system the federal grits will use the next time they have a leadership race, unless of course they feel like just appointing someone again.

The catch is that they’ll need to hold a special AGM in February to change the rules. As you might imagine, changing the rules for a leadership race in the midst of a leadership race isn’t the easiest thing to accomplish.

So this leaves a lot of uncertainty, and could mean Gordon Campbell stays on until May.

As for the contenders, Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts (who struck me as the best candidate from what little I know of the candidates) has decided to take a pass. Carole Taylor has also ruled out a return to politics, although from what I’ve read, the door is still somewhat ajar there.

Among other high profile candidates, some rumours have circled around Harper Cabmin James Moore, though I have a hard time seeing why a 34 year old Cabinet Minister would want to jump into a job that could very likely leave him unemployed in a little over two years. Plus, it’s not like being Heritage Minister is a bad gig – you get to go to movie premiers and meet cool wrestlers. Sounds like more fun than selling the HST to me.

The recently retired Keith Martin has also been rumoured, though I feel that speculation is more based on “let’s toss out random names of BC politicians” than on any sort of reality.

So that leaves us with possible candidates Rich Coleman, Kevin Falcon, George Abbott, Mike de Jong, Christy Clark and Blair Lekstrom. And, presumably, Frank McKenna.

I don’t know nearly enough about these candidates to offer any kind of insight on this race. From what I’ve seen online so far, BC2013 seems to be the go-to site but if you know of other blogs, feel free to post links in the comments section.

UPDATE: The leadership vote will be February 26th…less than two weeks after the vote to change the leadership selection rules.

One would think this kind of chaos could be avoided by a party in power, with an outgoing leader everyone knew was leaving, and two and a half years out from the next fixed date election. But, I guess not.