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Former British Columbia premier Christy Clark has decided not to run for the Conservative leadership after seriously weighing up a bid.

A source with knowledge of Clark’s thinking said she was primarily concerned that her French-language skills were rusty and that she didn’t have the Conservative Party bona fides to make such a late run for the job.

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Another major factor was simply the timing of the race. People testing the water for Clark and doing some preliminary organizing knew she had “zero chance” to win if former Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose entered the race. Ambrose took several weeks to decide whether she was going to make a bid for the leadership and went almost entirely dark while she considered it. That left several potential candidates, including Clark, in a holding pattern.

Clark’s supporters looked at a slate of candidates that may have included Ambrose, Ottawa-area MP Pierre Poilievre and former Progressive Conservative Party leader Jean Charest and concluded that there was no clear path to victory. Before long, though, all three had either withdrawn from the race or declined to run.