After more than a year of playing coy, businessman Dean MacDonald announced he won't be running for the Liberal Party leadership.
MacDonald said the timing wasn't right, based in "both personal and business commitments."
MacDonald has been widely seen as a potential frontrunner for the party leadership. He was also central in the Liberal "renewal committee" process.
In the past year, he's been giving speeches talking about leadership, vision and his ideas for the long term direction of the province.
He continued in that vein today, even as he was stepping aside.
His core message has been that the government needs to focus less on the year-to-year and election-to-election cycle.
MacDonald's speech was delivered at the Conception Bay South Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
Here we are again, cutting the legs out from under somebody who has proven to be successful. It's amazing that we can eviscerate somebody who was considering giving something back to the province. No wonder we get stuck with the likes of Eddie Joyce and Yvonne Jones. Why would anybody else do this to themselves?