Your predictions here:
How many seats is Stelmach going to lose?
So…. how long until the Alberta Liberals move forward on that name change thing?
BUT! Don’t count those chickens just yet… “It’s not over yet….”
Your predictions here:
How many seats is Stelmach going to lose?
So…. how long until the Alberta Liberals move forward on that name change thing?
BUT! Don’t count those chickens just yet… “It’s not over yet….”
Just to clarify. Nothing could persuade me to vote liberal,ndp, or green.
That’s Ed Strom, Jimbo. ( Or maybe it’s Harry Stelmach, I keep getting confused;)
Whatever his name, he is a weak leader who caves in to every pressure, every time. G-d help us though, he’s the best of lot that’s running this go-round.
Prediction, PCs lose 6-10 seats, mostly to the Gliberals, one or two to the Dippy’s and maybe one more to Wildrose.
An Albertan who voted for either the liberanos or the ndp isnt really an Albertan, he either moved in from BC or ontario in he last 1/2 a year.
I have gone from feeling apathetic about Ed Stelmach to having a very high opinion of him and am kind of surprised when I hear people complaining that he essentially “isn’t slick”. The province needs a period of time with a premier who notices rural Alberta and who will work toward building it back up for the next go-round when rural municipalities are forgotten again.
I guess I’m not that surprised when I hear people complaining.
According to Taft’s TV ads, Stelmach doesn’t listen to Albertans, Albertans WANT an economic slowdown…
…interesting, went to vote and I was marked down as already voted.
CTV and Global predict Stelmach majority — with 1% of polls reporting.
Time will tell. Real conservatives only have the choice between the Wildrose Alliance and staying home. Since Liberals threw the Conservative nomination by buying $5 memberships and bought a Liberal premier, right-wingers can choose between the leftist Liberals, far-leftist NDP, brainless Greens, and the suddenly leftist and brainless PC’s. That leaves only the WRA, and unfortunately Ignorant Ed called an election before the Right could effectively organize and throw out that arrogant rat who governed as though he had a mandate. We’ll see tonight what party the 25+ percent of alienated former PC’s pick.
Hostess Kate -> “…how long until the Alberta Liberals move forward on that name change thing?”
Probably when they reach their 100th anniversary in the wilderness in 2021.
I am watching the progress on Global and my goodness it looks like an absolute blowout by the PC’s. Currently (and it’s still very early) it shows the PC’s at 71 seats (up from 61), Libs 8 (down from 17) and NDP 4. This is a huge gain for Stelmach. I have to say I tip my hat to the guy, the people have embraced him (at least at 9:04 PM).
Wipe Out… Conservatives 68 seats!
Apologies to other party hardcores (and Kate) ….
BWAHAHAHAHAH W00T.
I had the privilege of voting for Ed himself. Wow, just saw a PC popular vote of 54%.
I am, however, pleased to see Taft tagged to keep his seat; an opposition party is important.
Looks like David Xiao is going to bump the Liberal incumbent in my Edmonton-McClung riding. So far he’s got a 261 vote lead with 26 polls out of 70 reporting. It’s close still but his story might be reflective of the PC’s impressive win this election. (Score at 9:20 PM is 71, 9, and 3)
Poor WRA leader Paul Hinman is about to lose his seat. Too bad, I liked him best out of all the principal candidates.
I agree with\you Vinnie about Taft. He is well suited to represent his riding. It was mighty close for a while there. The PC candidate was briefly in the lead in Edmonton-Riverview.
Paul Hinman is leading again
Read the comments from the top and ask yourself why you did not see this coming.
Albertans are quite content with their lot in life. It just seems there’s a vocal minority of whiners who don’t understand how good they have it here.
The people have spoken, and with about the same quiet dignity that Ed Stelmach has displayed since taking office.
What will Jeffrey Simpson say ?
“set you free” what you say about Ed Stelmach is true. He has quiet dignity. I supported Morton and I voted WRP in this election because I saw the party drifting too far to the left.
However, at no time did I hate or bad mouth Ed Stelmach. I like the guy (even if he did beat my man Ted for the leadership). Maybe it’s because he has this quiet level headed farmer quality about him.
As for the party, I still think we are drifting too far to the left.
What will Jeffrey Simpson say:
“Dum alberta rednek mf’s”
(Only paraphrasing here. Also channeling every Lib candidate who won and lost.)
What amazes me is that Cherniak allowed my post…”island conservative”…i have tried many times in the past but he blocked me out.
The King Is Dead. The King Is dead. Long Live King Ed. Seriously, I wanted to vote WRA but no candidate in my riding. I was even going to write one in but those stupid ballots are all black inside. No way, ever, can I vote LIB NDP Green. I would melt. Maybe we better start showing Steaddy Eddy a little respect. Nobody expected this.
David Xiao Edmonton-McClung is declared elected defeating Liberal incumbent Mo Elsalhy. I am impresssed with that. Impressed period. Numbers are thus far 71, 10, 2 (PC, Lib, NDP). What especially pleases me is the over the top “No Plan” advertisements by the super large corporate like unions had absolutely no effect at all in gaining some popular support for the Left.
never forget that:
*without oil, Alberta is just an ordinary province like all others*
Nah, we got the Rockies.
And we are mostly Jackass free…er rat free.
BC, Sask and others have lots of oil also — different Ideology.
Oh my Gawd. I love this. Just imagining the likes of Jason Cherniak spitting up his beer…….
The Liberal brand/idea……. are we watching its slow death nationwide? One can only hope.
Hate to say Itoleyaso. Who am I kidding, I love to say I told ya so. The Libs never gained any traction. The negative ads backfired. Nobody voted for them last time either – they voted against Ralph.
Ralph (I still love ya Ralph) was a lightning rod, and a lot of people voted against him, rather than voting for anybody. This time, there was nobody to hate.
atheist quebecois separatiste at 11:58
And never forget, AQS, that without Quebec, Canada will once again be Canada.
Jimbo: “The Libs never gained any traction. The negative ads backfired.”
Arrogance kills Grits every time.
Do ya think Kevin was “scary”?
I watched Kevin Taft’s consession speech on Global and was boggled to see, as the camera panned, a nearly empty room; mostly media. Can’t these people at least fill a room for their leader? He looked shocked.
Bazoo at 11:54 PM: “The King Is Dead. The King Is [D]ead. Long Live King Ed.”
“Slava Hetmants’i Edvard Mykhailo Stelmakh!”
(“Hetman”–> Cossack Supreme Commander)
That’s a good assessment, Jimbo — “There was no one to hate.” Ed Stelmach’s genuine nice guy-aninity was hugely underestimated, or rather, in retrospect, mis-defined. In terms of appearance he rates a ten on the fecklessness scale, but he’s also a genuinely decent guy — no one who’s ever met him has a single bad word to say about him. He’s almost ill-suited to politics — “almost” being the operative word, apparently.
Set you free said “ask yourself why you did not see this coming.” For me (I guessed four lost seats) a big reason was that the Edmonton media, particularly the Journal, focuses almost entirely on whiners, to the point where I was starting to wonder a bit about the people of this province. I only buy the Journal on Fridays and Saturdays (for the NYT crosswords) but if you take its coverage — the letters to the editor in particular, but also columnists like Susan Reilly — at face value at all, Edmontonians across the board were aggressively pining, almost aching, for GTA-style socialism to finally show up here. Guess it was just a hand-picked mini-throng.
BTW, did anyone else catch CFRN’s coverage? It was pretty good — one memorable moment was when Gil McGown of the Alberta Federation of Labour, the group mostly responsible for those hideous attack ads — the ones with the heavy-breathing background — said something like “What we’ve seen tonight is the death of democracy in Alberta.” I thought, yeah, we just gotta find a way to take those pesky voters out of the equation and bring back democracy.
What a day, what a province, what a colossal slap Albertans gave to the whiners.
CTV declares Paul Hinman defeated.
I am surprised that the WildRose Alliance didn’t get more seats, or possibly even any seats. The best result is that the era of King Ralph is clearly over and Albertans will no longer look in the rear view mirror. Shoot, it looks like Hinman has lost his seat.
Good comment on the results, EBD. It was indeed a total smack down of the whiners and the leftist sentiment.
Danm it, EBD, I’ve been sitting here for hours trying to write up something to summarize my elation at these notably pragmatic results we are now witnessing, and then in a flash you captured the heart of my thoughts with your brilliant phrasing: What a colossal slap Albertans gave to the whiners. Thank you sir, you are a wise man.
Today was a good day.
All those people calling for change…why?
Political pundits…wrong again
Their dreams shattered
Once again, Alberta voters were quite sensible. They rewarded the government that has given them their prosperity. Why bite the hand that feeds you?
The “Progressives” are clearly in charge for the time being so there is really no need of a Liberal Party in Alberta now – it was/still is pretty much the same thing anyway.
A whole lot of sorting out now as regards to who gets the cabinet jobs from Calgary. With rural votes counting about 1.5 (and in places nearly 2 times) the urban vote, virtually little will change for now.
By law, a boundaries commission must re-arrange the riding boundaries during this mandate to more equally represent the voting public. Once this is done – the next election may see different results – but nobody will be holding their breath after seeing the results this time around.
It is clear that the Wild Rose Alliance is not destined to go anywhere – now or in the future – and it was important to have it on the table for this election.
Dunvegan-Central Peace returned Hector Goudreau (over the WAP) (Minister i/c the AB Human Rights Commission) so kiss goodbye to any changes to the AB HRC.
Ron Stevens (PC) was re-elected in Calgary Glenmore with his campaign manager being a Calgary Alderman as well as an AB human rights adjudicator. So say hello to a continued revolving door justice system and increased bonds of political correctness.
Economically we are fine – who wouldn’t be with billions in surpluses.
What hubris. “What a colossal slap Albertans gave to the whiners.” Albertans outside of the corrals of the blogosphere could hardly give a cr*p about the whiners. They’re out in real life Getting Things Done and not sitting chattering amongst themselves about how they smacked down theany bogeymen under their beds. Really people…. get out a little….
WL Mackenzie Redux > ******
“Say giidby to at least a dozen seats Ediie…while you were so busy sucking the tailpipes of Ottawa Liberals in Beemers, you forgot that most of your province work for a living and are not to happy with wannabe Liberals who devise new ways to tax and spend their hard won productivity”.
Oooouch!
Hapless Eddie will have a near minority government and will be replaced by Ted Morton before the year is out.
EDB:
Are you saying the Edmonton Journal’s credibility has gone down in your estimation?
Remember, the Journal declared itself the official opposition the year Peter Lougheed won 74 of 79 seats.
Ever since, it’s editorial stance has been out of step with the Alberta electorate.
CBC rates it this way:
Despite an apparent appetite for change, voters in Alberta stuck with the tried-and-true, giving the Progressive Conservative party an unprecedented 11th consecutive majority government.
The Tories, who started their political dynasty in 1971, were leading or elected in 71 of 83 ridings in Monday night’s provincial election…
71 of 83 seats? Where exactly do the CBC spinmiesters see an “apparent appetite for change”?
It’s 11:13 and I hear Floyd Rubbertsbum announce the Alberta Tories are, get this.. “STILL ALIVE”!!
An understatement worthy of any un (?)biased so called news outlet. Makes me laugh.
WL Mackenzie Redux >
“Say giidby to at least a dozen seats Ediie…while you were so busy sucking the tailpipes of Ottawa Liberals in Beemers, you forgot that most of your province work for a living and are not to happy with wannabe Liberals who devise new ways to tax and spend their hard won productivity.
Hapless Eddie will have a near minority government and will be replaced by Ted Morton before the year is out”.
Oooouch!
FaithHopeLove>
“You people really should have learned from the PC leadership race not to underestimate Ed Stelmach.
He will increase his majority by 4”.
Or 12! good call though…..
Ok, ok, I’ve got it. Based on EBD’s comments about the so-called Journal &c, and a telephonic discussion I’ve just had with a colleague, here’s what’s what, in my opinion of course.
From the far left to the far right, and notably among the commentariat, we are being sold a false bill of goods. The libertarians claim authoritarianism, the socialists claim exploitation, up, down, front, back, left, right, and vice versa we are told: Be very afraid, the sky is falling: we must change.
So, naturally, we Albertans went and opened the window, stuck our heads out, looked up, and noted that, in fact, the sky is not falling. Ergo, while change is not a prior bad, changing from pragmatism to sky-is-falling snake-oil salesmen is, and so we Albertans didn’t support the snake-oil salesmen.
Where Alberta’s seeming sixth sense for avoiding shysters
comes from is beyond my ken, yet I’m sure glad we have it.
atheist quebecois separatiste>
“never forget that:
*without oil, Alberta is just an ordinary province like all others*”
We won’t and thank you in an extra ordinary way….