Wildrose Country

Oh wow.. I didn't know that her campaign mangler was also Naheed Nenshi's. Makes sense though!

Hm...I just had a thought. When the PCs under Redford lose very badly, she will be turfed. She will need to be replaced. In that event, it might worth buying a PC membership if a PC-rightist is running. Keep the competition hot on the Albertan Right, right?

I like Licia Corbella, and not only because she's a fellow born & raised Vancouverite! She truly hits the nail on the head in this wonderful column!!

The other day, Danielle Smith referred to Alison Redford as a "liberal" (Liberal?) when discussing the current smear tactics the PC party (and its friends in the Media Party) are using. I don't believe this was a slip of the tongue. Any reasonable person would conclude that Ms. Redford's belief system is much closer aligned to the Liberal Party, with tinges of affiliation with the NDP. If that's who Albertans want running their province then so be it. I don't think they do though.

Here's a key section of Corbella's column:

"‘[Alison Redford] was born on third base but she thought she hit a triple,’” says another Tory mandarin.

"She thinks she’s smarter than all of these smart people, but she’s clearly not very astute politically. She won the Tory leadership by a fluke because of a flawed process. On the first ballot she had 19 per cent of the votes, but believes it was her brilliance that won her the leadership.

P.S. The comments on the Calgary Herald site are priceless ... for their stupidity! That newspaper must really appeal to the latte sipping bitter liberals in Calgary.

I hope the fake Conservative Party are handed their hats and told to sod off you progressive liberal flakes.

The article really does seem to reflect those calgarians I've been speaking with so far in the campaign.

If we wanted Liberals to rule Alberta..

marc in calgary, I was part of a group of 8 the other night and it unanimous that the Smith's Wild Rose would humble Redford's PC/Liberals. Though,the group was partisan because it was almost a certainty that the left would not be represented there.

Alison Redford’s mandate was to ideologically break up the Alberta PC party from the onset, not unlike any run of the mill SDA troll.

Par for the course, they are not smart enough to see that they only strengthen conservative resolve, not weaken it. All Saul Alinsky and no Sun Tzu, makes for a miserable fate.

Nice article but not quite accurate. The PCs did not want Jim Dinning or any of the other candidates and thus saddled themselves with Special Ed. The party did not want Gary Marr which is why they saddled themselves with Red Ali. The fact is the PCs did not have an attractive candidate in the last two leadership reviews and the only reason Special Ed won his trip to the polls is because none of the others were viable. As it stands now its not that Danielle Smith and the WRA are burning up the election trail its the fact that most Albertans have reached the conclusion that Red Ali has got to go. Like the federal liberals, the Alberta PCs have decided that the object of governing is power not policy and like the federal liberals the Alberta PCs are about to be tossed from power and likely never to return.

Wildrose has gotten one country artist inspired:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UcbeEqrp2Q

"she's a fellow.." and Glenn Beck is the crazy one.
ithot men were bcoming women? not the other way around

Joe, just curious about your comment about Gary Marr. My understanding was that it was very clear that the largest number of PC members did want Mr. Marr. Curious as to why you believe this not to be true.

Marr was always tainted with a certain 'liberal slease' factor. Yes he had a following in the PC party but more didn't want him than did. Although he is less doctrinaire 'progressive' than Red Ali he is no more electable.

Redford is in deep (and well deserved) trouble. I just heard her on the radio saying that people need to look at individual candidates. That is almost CERTAINLY an indication that Redford's leadership appeal among Albertans is tanking fast and she is trying to take the focus off herself. She is an arrogant soft totalitarian.

"heard her on the radio saying that people need to look at individual candidates."

That explains an interview I saw on Sun News recently when a lib spokesguy started talking about how a team consists of players, not just the coach....

Any chance Wildrose could invade Ontario after the election? And by that I mean a real invasion - we are in deep doo-doo over here.

Latest public polls

I thought both Mar and Redford should have been in the Liberal leadership campaign, not the PC's.

That said, Mar seemed more of the "all about Gary" type.

Redford ended up being worse, much worse.

I was surprised to learn on Good Friday that Redford is still a Canadian only because South Africa denied her citizenship application in 1995.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/12/13/on-drafting-a-constitution-dealing-with-afghan-warlords-and-why-alberta-needs-china/

I wold like to see that as a question at the leaders debate.

"Have any of you applied for citizenship of another country?"

A search of the #abvote Twitter hashtag revealed a fellow named Dave Cournoyer who tweets here. Reading through his tweets & blog, it's clear that he's just another Leftist who has never met a conservative woman he didn't hate.

Bonus shocker: He lives in Edmonton and works for the nurses union - one of Redford's last few key constituencies.

Mississauga Matt >

What would be nice to see in Alberta is more real conservative immigration from eastern Canada than the leftist societal dregs that Toronto has been pushing on us for a decade now.

I suppose I don’t understand fully why more full blown conservatives don’t pick up sticks and escape to freedom like our Albertan founders did, and help solidify a prosperous conservative culture. Like the UK, staying to politically fight the Liberal Progression hasn’t worked out so well, although I do understand attachments and roots for established people.

"I was a technical adviser to the legal and constitutional affairs committee of the ANC, which was providing advice to the most senior leadership levels of the ANC."

So she was rubbing elbows with communist revolutionaries. I can see that.

The whole problem I see with the Conservatives is that their right wing bailed out after Stelmach won. Ted Morton ran again and got nothing. The right wing had moved to Wildrose.

I got the emergency call to join the party to vote for Marr on the second ballot and I did. My biggest concern was to head off 3rd place Doug Horner who is a bigger retard than Stelmach. I had no appreciation of Alison Redford and didn't know that she knew all 37 verses of the Internationale.

FWIW, I joined the PC party to vote for Ted Morton over Jim Dinning. Then Special Ed got elected.

I started looking for a new party to vote for.

Scar you have to admit that Morton didn't do himself any favours by staying in the PC caucus when Special Ed was re-writing contract law in Alberta. I know that because of his party loyalty before principle I would never vote for him again.

Three things...

#1. The PC leadership election was and is flawed. The reason Ed Stelmach won is because left-wingers were lining up in huge numbers to vote Jim Dinning into power.
Conservatives were voting Ted Morton.
Ed Stelmach was a Northern rural old boy that no one paid attention to.
When Dinning failed on the first ballot, left wingers realized they had to stop Ted Morton, so they voted Ed Stelmach as a second choice. Ted Morton supporters didn't want liberal Jim Dinning to win so THEY voted Ed Stelmach as their second choice. When Ted and Jim failed to get the numbers they needed the second choice ballots threw Stelmach into the Premiers chair.

Alison Redford's story is similar except this time around conservatives had spent years hemorhagging out of the PC party, so the battle was between liberal and really liberal.

When Alison (really liberal) won, liberal's in Alberta mistakenly thought this represented a new and glorious, cosmopolitan era for big government sophisticated socialism. Finally, finally! Alberta could stand tall and win over favour with the latte sipping Toronto...or egads! New York crowds! Alberta had finally come of age!
Except they were horribly, horribly wrong.

#2. Stephen Carter is viewed as a boy genius, campaign manager and suffers accordingly. The Nenshi campaign is regarded as a masterplan of social media and credentialism tapping into the youth vote and bringing Calgary forward into the glorious new liberal age.
Wrong again.
Nenshi was the lucky recipient of a vote split. Conservatives divided their efforts between Alderman Rick McIver and dimbulb news reader Barb Higgins. Some guys like Rod Love tried to do the Ralph Klein thing and thrust Barb into the Mayor's office, but in the 21st century nobody cares if you can read the news on t.v.
Nenshi ran up the middle with a cabal of Muslims, liberals and gays.
(I have no hard evidence of that last sentence, but it seems reasonable. It's also not meant as a slam. Nenshi's not a bad Mayor so far really and those are the crowds he mobilized best...so be it.)
Alison Redford then hired Carter and as I wrote in the first section, it was basically a fluke with "same-day-Tory-membership-purchases-liberal-voters" thrusting her into power.
Now both Carter and Redford seem at a loss as to why and how this whole thing is coming apart in such a horrible, horrible fashion.
So much for genius.

#3. People need to temper their hope with Wildrose. They are rookies and they will most likely not win a huge majority. They'll be facing an entrenched bureaucracy and lot's of Reform-style candidates that the media will chew up and spit out.
There's a big social conservative cabal that will hopefully be sophisticated enough to handle themselves. Also an oil industry cabal, that will have to temper their zeal for the energy sector.
Wildrose reminds me a little of the Saskatchewan Party during Elwin Hermanson's time. Better than the alternative?
Absolutely.
Ready for Prime time?
Er...well....not really, but...oh well.

Jeff, you make some good points.

However, I will not understand the thinking of someone voting for the PCs this time rather than Wildrose under the premise that the latter may not be ready for primetime. That mentality, I believe, is what has kept corrupt Democrat politicians in power in the U.S. for much too long.

Truth be told, I used to think that way when it came to the B.C. Liberals and the NDP. For in the past it was true that a vote for a 3rd party like the Conservatives was essentially handing a victory to the NDP. But things have gotten so bad here with Christy Clark under the helm, that I simply cannot stomach voting for the "lesser of two really bad choices".

In summary, Albertans have a chance to correct a lot of wrongs in their province. Certainly the Wildrose group will make mistakes but Danielle Smith seems like a very principled person whose feet are touching the ground. If she stays that way and keeps a firm grip on the rudder of the ship then she can likely do some very positive things for the province.

PCs are running a liberal in calgary varsity ,

http://ezralevant.com/2009/03/donna-kennedyglans-liberal-sab.html

a fake PC. a liberal in liberal PC clothes .

Summary: The PC insiders and mandarins are saying they were already bound for a train wreck, but Redford should have called an election earlier so their jobs would be secure for another four years.

That self-serving smug attitude is what's wrong with the PC's.

As someone who was a big Nenshi supporter, I can say that plenty of folks who voted for Nenshi are also voting Wildrose.

I'm one of them and I know plenty more.

jeff...I agree with most of what you said...I especially liked the part about Stephen Carter misunderstanding his genious social media strategy...never believe your own hype.

well robert you are a lost soul , nenshi and his nenshi ninja brigade are a bunch of laft wing feel good panty wastes ...nenshi just likes to here himself talk ...he hate christians , but he love communist's/socialist's ...he is an embarassment to calgary and if the opinion of him i have been hearing is right he will also be a one term mayor ..calgarians are smartenting up and are starting to realize just how big of fools the left in calgary and alberta were trying to play them for and redford is as far left as you can get ...well as far left as she can get away with in alberta ...i am hoping to personally thank danielle smiths hand on a great win !!!

What a great article to read after spending the afternoon door knocking asking people if they want a 4 by 4 Wildrose sign on their fence. Makes one want to get up tomorrow and do it again. The pcs are in straight up panicky mode they know that the Rat Queen is the Capitan on a ship of fools.

This will get worse as the campaign goes on the dippers and the liberals will start attacking the pcs to try to save themselves.

Libertarians are not conservative.

@JEFF

Very good points , how ever i will say this , how can you determine a rookie politician's rookienss?

Danielle smith while never holding a political office other than the upstart wild rose , is very telling she has taken her party to the for front of the battle field in just over four years that alone is very telling of her capabilities.

But let me say i am towing the party line for a conservative party apply that to witch ever party you wish , education has NOTHING to do with politics as you can see how far it has gotten a doctor , a lawyer, and a poitical science grad .

Education has nothing to do with it , you have to know your people ,you have to know your province , you have to know how to conect with the average joe ..and not just for votes but you have to know how people think and what they desire for there province/city /country....

You could be as dumb as a post when it comes to math but if you know how people are and what they want and desire from there governemnt if you can relate to them and listen and stay humble you can and will have success , if you always stay on the side of the people you will always have there votes ..as you can see here ...the wild rose will win a majority , but they will also have some mistakes and some issues along the way (YOU HERD IT FIRST HERE) There will be memebers who are sniffed out and found out to be not of proper public standing , but they will recover easily if they stick to there guns about smaller government , less taxes , privatizing some of the health care , conscience rights, so on and so forth. if they dont or shall i say when they dont ....they will fall out of power the worry form e is will there be a solid conservative who will be able to stand in there place i think the wild rose will set the bar high!!!

libertarians are not poor either ..usually not even middle class !!! and usually not sane from a moral perspective as they usually have none!!!

Celina - Libertarians are not conservative.

We go with those who give lip service to promises of less government. And we get Alison Redford.

Libertarians have no morals...sheesh...

Well libertarians are more likely to be conservative and totalitarians are more likely to be left wing.....it has to be that way because the socialist world is held together by State power.

Classic thought now working it's way through the over 45 female crowd......"She's younger than me and she reminds me of my meanest teacher"
Alison Redford has an image problem. She is terse, she is bossy and she DOES NOT possess an engaging or trustworthy personality. Her leadership signs said "Alison Redford for Premier" and there are PC's that wonder how or why this is happening? Why she didn't listen to the 'powers that are'? Check her leadership signs for a clue! OMG, THEY ALL need to go.

Disgusting to read that the so-called Tory insiders were only worried about losing their grip on power.

I started off reading in the article that party insiders were furious about Redford "rejecting sound political advice". How naive was I to think that they were advising her on how to return to principled conservatism and sound economic policy and that she was rejecting their advice.

Were they worried about the leftward direction of the Party under Redford?? NO!

They were worried about how she disregarded their advice to manipulate the system in order to HOLD ON TO POWER!!!!! Conservative principles be damned.

Disgusting and sickening.

I hope they get the most humiliating defeat ever.

And we need to make sure these vermin won't try to jump to the Wildrose bandwagon.

Daniel hates Red Tories...explain Ted Morton.

Mississauga Matt,

Its more likely that small-govt types will run for Alberta! Though we might slow down in Saskatchewan.

Jeff/ Oh yes the Wildrose are not ready. What we really need is to maintian the PC's who have a proven track record of failure at all levels and corruption to boot. I would rather put my bet on an honest young man, willing to work hard on MY BEHALF than an experieced old thief and crook who has spent years looting my accounts and fattening themselves at my expense. Give the new guys with no record of theft and corruption a chance everytime over lazy stupid and crooked. Go Danielle, Go Wildrose.

Breaking News/Alberta Education Minister Assaulted On Doorstep. http://www.globaltvedmonton.com/albertas%2Beducation%2Bminister%2Band%2Bmla%2Bcandidate%2Ballegedly%2Bassaulted%2Bwhile%2Bdoor-knocking/6442616621/story.html

Alison the Red utterly failed to understand that entropy - defined as "Things Resolving Themselves to Their Most Random State and Lowest Energy Level" - had been festering for years within the Alberta PC party. Perhaps she thought they were immune to it or that the law of entropy had been repealed by an order-in-council some years ago but she never bothered to ask anyone.

RFB >

Jeeze and he reminds me so much of the son Obamba could have had. I hope they catch the white guy that did it, it sounds like he may he may have a cracked fingernail, but forensics will need to confirm.

Paul, I supported Nenshi for Mayor.

I have been disappointed with his performance.

It happens.

Thomas Lukaszuk, MLA candidate for Edmonton-Castle Downs and Alberta Education Minister apparently got in a shoving match with a constituent. The guy says Lukaszuk wouldnt go despite numerous requests to leave. Education Minister Lukaszuk - has to be an oxymoron there.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1158178--alberta-education-minister-says-he-was-punched-while-campaigning

And the "assailant" is 67 and in liver failure. Minister Lukaszak called the police even though he says he wasn't hurt...quite a campaign strategy. Al Michalchuk speaks for me.

Minister Lukaszak, how frigging embarrassing, do you have no shame or sense of self worth at all?

Oh yea, our conservative hero, running to the police like a spoilt little schoolgirl for taking a “beating” from a 67 year old dying pensioner that didn't want to vote for your pansy Liberal butt.

People wonder why Albertan’s are voting WRP.

Turfing the PC MLA's won't be enough. The many Mandarins will continue to inflict damage upon Albertans unless the Wild Rose Government doesn't just reduce the size of government, but changes the composition of many of the senior bureaucrats offering their sage advice.