Following its humiliating election defeat, shell-shocked PLP mandarins and officials gathered at the party's Gambier House headquarters to hear from Chairman Bradley Roberts and outgoing leader and deposed Prime Minister Perry Christie.
The wan expression chiseled on the face of former Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson captured the gloomy mood and evening.
Former Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald, who giddily danced on Nomination Day following the unseemly revelation of begging for contracts from former Baha Mar developer Sarkis Izmirlian, was also in attendance for what was a wake for a number of political careers.
These former ministers, who contributed appreciably to the PLP's defeat, listened as Roberts tried to rally the troops and to defend the PLP's record.
While some clapped as Roberts attempted to plaster a brave face on a disastrous event for the party, many sat stunned, immobilized, weary.
It was clear, despite the magnitude of the defeat, that many of the party's faithful were still living in the Gambier House bubble and suffering from the Gambier House syndrome.
The bubble and syndrome constitute a mindset still on spectacular display by the majority of the PLP's parliamentary caucus, who are extremely defensive, petulant, bitter and angry, much of which is a residue of their defeat.
What fuels the syndrome is the sense of entitlement by a party which believes that it is the natural party of government and that the FNM will always be an interloper in government.
When the PLP returned to office in 2012, many who were granted contracts or consultancies by the FNM resigned or were asked to leave.
This has been a normal practice.
Now that the FNM has returned to office, some PLPs are attempting to label a regular practice as "victimization".
It is the sort of double standard regularly employed by many PLPs with a sense of entitlement, which bred corruption and conflicts of interest among former PLP Cabinet ministers.
The revelation that public funds intended for marketing in Grand Bahama were directed toward monitoring talk shows and editorials is alarming.
It is reminiscent of regimes conducting surveillance in an inappropriate and highly irregular manner on the public and the press.

Syndrome
Despite this and other revelations of PLP misconduct and potential misfeasance, the Gambier House bubble and syndrome are manifest in Opposition Leader Philip Brave Davis and other PLP leaders.
The symptoms of the syndrome include a grandiose sense of entitlement; an inability to admit wrongdoing and to ask for pardon because of a woeful pride; and the PLP's empty boast that it is the more progressive party, and the true party of the poor and grassroots in the country.
In his frenzied defense of just about everything PLP, Davis looks clownish and unserious. He is morphing into "Brave the clown".
Davis is further damaging an already poor public image. A former senior PLP advised a few weeks ago that the public should take a new look at Davis. Bahamians are taking a new look at Davis. They do not like what they see.
Davis, who held up signs touting crime statistics during the 2012 election and who misled the House of Assembly on a matter related to BAMSI, had the gall during the recent budget debate to suggest that the FNM won the recent election because of lies and spin. Really?!
While the FNM ran a good campaign, the PLP lost the election because of the arrogance and behavior of Christie, Davis, Maynard-Gibson, Shane Gibson, Fitzgerald and a host of other PLPs.
Until Davis can publicly admit this, his defensiveness is laughable and he should be seen as a jokester. He may be incapable of expressing the "sincere and humble apology and repentance" that colleague MP Chester Cooper believes the PLP should offer the country. He should stop acting like a defense attorney for a client with a long rap sheet.
In relentlessly defending the PLP's misdeeds and hubris, Davis is demonstrating the degree to which he is affected by the Gambier House syndrome. He remains in a bubble.
The more he defends the previous administration, the more he angers Bahamians. It is an extraordinary irony that, after becoming estranged from his former prime minister, Davis is left defending the man who would not demit office so that he could secure his ambition to become prime minister.

Placeholder
The sad news for Davis is that while he is the placeholder leader of the PLP, he will likely never become prime minister because of the legacy of the last Christie government.
Many institutions and groups evolve into seemingly impenetrable bubbles, isolating themselves from painful realities.
The bubble mentality has affected institutions from the Vatican to the John F. Kennedy administration during the Bay of Pigs crisis, to corporate giants like IBM and blue chip firms reluctant to adapt to change.
Potential change agents like former PLP Chairman Raynard Rigby and Cooper, the Exuma and Ragged Island MP, are trying to bring change to the PLP.
Given the Gambier House bubble and syndrome, the prospects for reform may be dim.
This is unfortunate, because the country needs a strong and viable opposition. The PLP has a proud history and legacy. It can be revitalized under better leadership.
But the oligarchs and mandarins have a stranglehold on a formerly progressive party that was once dedicated to liberalism in its broader sense, particularly in terms of liberty and equality.
A party that used public funds to monitor talk shows and editorials; that failed to free the broadcast media; that opposed the first gender equality referendum; that often failed to abide by basic norms of transparency and accountability; and that failed to have Parliament authorize an intelligence agency, is not committed to liberalism.
Instead, it is a hidebound organization interested in power only for the sake of power!
Chester Cooper has issued a warning to the PLP about reform.
He recently noted at a PLP event: "We were not accountable enough and not transparent enough. And we ignored scandals - protecting the interest of offending individuals and condoned things we should not have by our silence ...
"We hid behind a message of majority rule, without updating it for new generations who feel little connection to it but rather seek economic empowerment. The millennials told us that they were over all that, and we ignored the youth to our peril."
Cooper advised: "We have to show The Bahamas we have learned from our mistakes. We must show The Bahamas that we are ready and able to serve. We must show them that we are willing to listen to them more than we are willing to talk about ourselves. We must reform. We must transform."
Cooper cautioned: "We must move immediately towards the reform, rebranding and re-energizing of our party, inclusive of a thoughtful analysis and updating of the party's constitution and governance, including the structure and protocols of appointing stalwart councillors as well as the election of a new slate of party officers that signals that the party is ready to regain the trust to be repositioned into a lean, mean winning machine."
The Exuma and Ragged Island MP is pushing for reform in a party in which many of his seniors are still in the Gambier House bubble and affected by a syndrome that will be exceedingly difficult to arrest.
But given the business, financial and political mindset and needs of the PLP oligarchs and his parliamentary colleagues, change will not come easily to the PLP.
The reformers in the PLP are in for a hell of a fight with those with vested interests, who will have to be defeated if the party is to move forward and become more viable.

o frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian