Vancouver — After a frustrating and trying eight years in opposition, B.C. Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell was on top of the political world 19 months ago, after roaring to one of the most crushing electoral victories in Canadian history.

Mr. Campbell's party took 77 of 79 seats, leaving his bitter rivals in the previous NDP government with just two.

Since then, however, he has seen his popularity plummet, as his government proceeds with a series of controversial budget cuts that are closing schools and hospitals and drastically reducing social services.

Although the most recent Ipsos-Reid poll showed his Liberals still holding a healthy lead over the NDP, Mr. Campbell's personal approval rating was down to 37 per cent, 12 points behind NDP Leader Joy MacPhail's.

Now, with yesterday's news of his arrest for drunk driving in Hawaii, Mr. Campbell's political future is in peril. It was a development no one could have predicted.

Although he is known to knock back a drink or two at receptions, the Premier does not have a reputation as a heavy or problem drinker.

Gordon Campbell was only 13 when his respected academic father committed suicide after struggling with alcohol-related depression.

Late last year, the Premier spoke publicly about his father's death. He used the incident to call for better approaches to treating mental disorders, noting that his father had been treated badly by his employers.

"He essentially lost his job. How many people would have lost their job if they had broken their leg?" Mr. Campbell asked at a Canadian mental health conference.

It was a side of Mr. Campbell rarely glimpsed in public, where the Premier often seems rigidly partisan, and cool and aloof from ordinary people's preoccupations.

Yet he spent two years in his early 20s, with his wife Nancy, teaching schoolchildren in Nigeria, and has written two children's books. He is an inveterate reader, often with several books on the go at the same time.

Despite his reputation as a business-friendly pawn of Howe Street, a reputation enhanced by working several years as a developer, the Premier's upbringing was far from charmed.

During his teenaged years, he lived in a one-bedroom apartment with his two brothers, on his mother's salary as a secretary, after the elder Mr. Campbell's suicide ended their affluent West Side lifestyle.

Mr. Campbell, who turns 55 tomorrow, met his wife, now a vice-principal, during a skiing trip in 1969. The two were married a year later. They have two sons, Geoff and Nick.

He first became politically involved working in the office of flamboyant Vancouver mayor Art Phillips in the early 1970s. Mr. Campbell took over the mayoralty himself in the 1980s and won several fierce political battles over left-wing municipal opponents, among them legendary alderman Harry Rankin.

He took over the Liberal leadership from Gordon Wilson in 1993, in a nasty struggle that erupted over a love affair between Mr. Wilson and MLA Judy Tyabji.

In 1996, Mr. Campbell ran a disastrous campaign, allowing himself to be ridiculed for appearing in television ads strumming a guitar and wearing plaid shirts.

The attempt to appear folksy backfired; the Liberals lost a huge lead in public-opinion polls, and Glen Clark won a narrow, upset victory for the NDP.

Mr. Campbell nursed his wounds, and when the next election was called, voters rewarded the Liberals with 58 per cent of the popular vote and a landslide victory in 2001.

He promised huge tax cuts and balanced budgets.

Since then, however, Mr. Campbell's government has run into trouble, producing record-high budget deficits while trying to cope with a stumbling economy.

Anger has mounted as job cuts take their toll in the public sector and social program reductions anger seniors. For a time, the Premier was unable to make public appearances without attracting large crowds of hostile demonstrators. His constituency office was firebombed, and there have been numerous anonymous threats against him.

Still, there are no credible challengers to him on the horizon. He continues to enjoy strong support in caucus, and it will undoubtedly be a personal decision, rather than bowing to political pressure, if the steely Mr. Campbell decides to step down because of his drunk-driving charge.