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VICTORIA — After the first debate of campaign 2017, all three party leaders knew they needed to do something different when the main event convened Wednesday night in Vancouver.

The defender, B.C. Liberal leader Christy Clark, had been thrown off her game somewhat last week. Not in command of her material. Struggling at times to make points.

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Then there was that slogan the Liberals dreamed up for her to slot into every message box and sound bite? “The Only Party with a Plan.” Not in the same league as Obama’s Yes We Can or Trudeau’s Real Change Now or even Debt Free B.C. to mention what was slapped on the side of the Liberal bus in the last election, bogus as it turned out to be.

The challenger, NDP Leader John Horgan, needed to find a way to hold Clark and the Liberals to account without getting overly personal the way he did in the first debate.

“You are all politics all the time. Take a few minutes and read something. It may be like that in the first-class lounge, but in the rest of the world, people are struggling. If you want to keep doing your thing, I’ll watch you for a while — I know you like that.”