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The biggest knocks on Andrew Wilkinson have been that he’s too straitlaced, too downtown, too tight-collared and maybe a little (or a lot) too smug about his own prodigious I.Q.

But they said the same thing about a guy named Gordon Campbell, and he won three elections in a row in this province and drove the NDP crazy in the process.

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Now the B.C. Liberals hope Wilkinson can lead them into a new dynasty by defeating the governing NDP in the next election.

Wilkinson won the Liberal leadership on Saturday night, edging out rival Dianne Watts on a fifth and final count.

Watts, the former Surrey mayor, was a favourite going in. She was seen as a potential fresh new face for a party that had grown stale and unappealing during 16 long years in power.

Instead, the Liberals narrowly decided to go with the old-school establishment candidate instead of the new outsider.

Wilkinson did it by consolidating his base of support inside the existing Liberal caucus. He had 13 MLAs supporting him — the most of any candidate including Watts, who had none.