“The room the PC’s rented isn’t big enough for an Italian wedding reception.”*
The polls have closed, let the results commence!
9pm Update – with early results suggesting that polls were upside down, and Redford is heading for a possible Progressive majority, Alberta politics remain a good news story for Saskatchewan.
Really pathetic. Ezra sure can’t pick winners lately. Still love the guy though.
Not a good sign for B.C. either; I can’t see there being much of a breakthrough for conservatives here either. Harper will not get the needed nudge RIGHT either.
Will Sask stay on a conservative course? Will there be an influx of Alberta refugees?
Cheers Kate,and thanks.
And the Ottawa Senators lost too, this evening. My mother told me there would be days like this 🙁
Well, its not a disaster. The PC’s are going to a see a real competitor on the right. There is a large difference in seats but only 1 vote in 10 separating them. Which means that Wildrose only needed 1 vote in 20 to switch to their side to have made this a hell of a race.
The Conservatives got a pass this time around. Next time they had better be careful of putting forward to many socialist policies. In fact, a Wildrose presence will certainly blunt or prevent many of them.
Gary Marshall
PC 60
WR 19!
So much for Albertans showing the rest of Canada!
Shades of McGuinty’s Ontario!
Now, I suppose BC can look forward to an NDP government.
I don’t believe in fraud. Canada is not that far gone yet.
Sorry, no. The difference in the federal polls from the vote count was only a few percent—big enough for a majority, but small enough to be ascribed to bias. We went from 5 percent in Wildrose’s favour (at worst) to ten percent against. Swings of fifteen percent just don’t happen in one night in honest elections.
Of course the Tories didn’t have boxes of fake ballots hidden in a warehouse somewhere. They didn’t have to. The “community leaders” in Calgary and Redmonton ordered the faithful to go vote Tory, whether they were legally able to or not.
…as I was writing this CBC just called a majority Tory government, letting viewers hear the sound of the Tories laugh themselves sick.
I tell you solemnly, they have had their reward.
dmorris: yup, we BCers might as well face reality now 🙁
Sad day, but yet not surprised. Alberta is still the best province to live in. Lets just hope “Red”ford doesn’t damage us too badly before we can get some level-headed people in to set things right again.
Will Sask stay on a conservative course?
Sorry to burst another teabagging bubble, but Wall and the SK party have been and are pursuing the same pragmatic, centrist (Liberal) agenda as Calvert and Romanow before them.
The one ray of hope here is that in most cases the first 30-50 per cent of the vote to be reported might be more “progressive” while the last 30-50 per cent might be more conservative, can recall a few federal ridings where the final totals reflected this trend. I really can’t see that factor overcoming a 60-20 lead but it may end up closer than that anyway. The closer the better, of course, but it would be a disappointment, especially given the kind of PC leader we see in this instance. On the other hand, who knows what might happen over the next two or three years in the legislature if Redford as premier tried to govern further left than her own caucus wanted? So it may not be as “decided” as these results suggest.
By the way, Redmonton, WTF? Have you checked what province you’re in?
Peter, I am afraid you are mostly correct. Canadians of all stripes really are pussified wusses.
Saskatchewan is only on hiatus at the moment. I seem to recall the NDP being the natural governing party there for the longest time; it’s just a matter of time….
Sun News just declared for the PC’s.
@Bart F. re: ‘After 41 years there is just too much residual inertia.’
Agreed. That’s sort of what I was getting at in an earlier post. It seems the only party that would get the electorate to turn on a dime these days would be the ‘We Pay For All Your Shit’ party. Young or old, too many people want something for nothing and want it to fall from the sky so they don’t have to get up off the couch and miss Maury.
Go figure…
Sun news just declared PC majority. I’m depressed and I don’t even live in Alberta. I hope Albertans regret this and do something about it next election.
Just a harmless, humorous ditty for election day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjJLTslWp_Q
gutpunch.
–
watching from ontario with a daughter freshly moved to alberta [and having lived there myself back in 80s], i was sure hoping for a wild rose earthquake.
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watching the msm and urban elites and socialists get a thrashing was going to ease the pain of an ndp/mcguinty budget deal today.
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c’est la vie.
This is extremely depressing:(
Alberta, of all provinces, should have seen the writing on the wall. I suspect that a lot of people have never heard of, nor read about, UN Agenda 21.
The faux polls probably a part of the strategy. Thought the public would see through that desperate video they put out – they only voted conservatives because they are not conservatives. No offense to the easterners on the board, but I don’t think the imports helped the situation any. Pandering to the youth who know no other identity except that of being part of some special interest group or another didn’t help either; most of all it was the fear mongering me thinks.
Alberta minus oil revenue = Quebec. Alberta spends more per capita then any other province including Quebec.
Sad. I thought there was a chance to reverse course.
I weep for my wild rose country – fools have sold it to globalist statism. The Alberta advantage is officially dead. No longer proud nor free.
All I can say is WTF
All the polls showed a consistent WR lead. There was no big swing to the PC’s at some point. This was all an illusion of bad polling. The popular vote bust looks particulary bad for the pollsters.
Possible Factors:
* Poor sampling outside of the two big cities. These areas are where the pollsters were ridiculously wrong.
* A lot of people don’t answer their landlines unless or reply to surveys of any kind. Makes data gathering really problematic.
I don’t ascribe to the corrupted election hypothesis yet.
I think it will be interesting to see the senate results,and compare those numbers on a party basis to the general results.
Will it show a strategic voting victory?
Disappointing and very surprising. No excuses however. Excuses are for socialists and Leaf fans. I think many Albertans, especially in the rural areas, voted for the PC Party of Ralph Klein … the PC Party that they had grown comfortable with. How many of these voters honestly know the real story on the new leader? I really can’t believe that Albertans bought into the homophobic, racist, redneck crap that the media and the PC’s were throwing at the Wildrose.
Hopefully (and I believe there are) enough true conservatives left in the Alberta PC Party to keep Redford under control or, better yet, stage a revolt and turf her.
Come on people, a little perspective here. It’s not like the NDs got voted in. Ted Morton is still going to be a cabinet minister.
Alberta will always be conservative, but this is a good reminder that conservative does not mean extreme tea party.
Liberals popular vote is 9% – down from 24% last time. That big swing of 15%…mmmmmm, where did that go?
Alberta goes commie? WTF are you people smoking over there? This is completely insane. Canada’s economic engine getting gummed up by Toronto socialists.
I thought the margin of error was +/- 4%. Not +/-20%. Also, Leech better start heading for the hills. The media will be laying the blame at his feet just to further their agenda.
Liberals popular vote is 9% – down from 24% last time. That big swing of 15%…mmmmmm, where did that go?
Posted by: Rudy at April 23, 2012 11:30 PM
_________________________________
BINGO!
I will not be the first to welcome our NDP overlords . Did I mention I’m pissed about this ?
As a Alberta “Conservative”, I can’t believe the vote! We have now become Ontario or Quebec. We used to be exceptional!
Totally and completely disgusted.
…………….coming soon to a riding near you:
: Higher Royalty fees..say goodbye to Ensign etc.
: Provincial Sales tax
: Increased user fees on EVERYTHING..Bet on it.
: No health care public inquiry (desperately needed)
: Nanny state BS – .05 Alcolhol law
: No change in MLA Perks/PaY AND continued sucking at the public teat..paid for by above taxes and user fees of course.
: Continued annual 3%+ increases for snivel servants with no change in their golden benefit plans.
Hell, Reford will likely take a page from McMoron and go with TOU meters, ECO tax, and wind farm/alternative energy stupidity too.
FACK..!!!!!!!!!!!!!
God Help us all. I feel like Obama’s twin sister just got elected in Alberta….Actually, I think she did.!
Alberta’s first NDP government. The Nanny State somehow survives and flourishes — in Alberta! I feel sick. And what a spectacular polling malfunction; polling now seems to have been rendered effectively useless. I may hit the bottle tonight, before prohibition is legislated!
Kind of reminds me of 2003 (I think) when, about a week before election day, Elwin Hermansson was on his way to ousting the NDP. Something happened to up-end that. This looks alot like that.
The Sask Party didn’t give up then and I’m sure the Wild Rose Party will not give up now.
I have no doubt that Redford will screw up good and proper between now and the next election and Albertans will find their cohones and turn that province back in the right direction.
It is disappointing…especially after all the polling ‘highs’ showing WR way ahead. Obviously, as it has been stated, Liberal support went PC big time. Strategic voting victory? Maybe. Wildrose has some growing to do folks. Smith won her riding; it’s time for her to shine in the Legislature. And to be honest, WR needs some serious candidates.
No, Bart, it isn’t an illusion of bad polling. The polls were accurate. What happened is very simple. Alberta was indeed ready for a change. But how many times have I and others told you lot that elections matter? WR had a large and consistent lead until part way through the last week. Then a string of very public gaffes turned a lot of fence-sitters very nervous.
What happened is obvious. The Liberal vote tanked and flooded into the PCs in strategic voting. With two centre-left parties, they could conveniently switch to Redford’s camp knowing that the political intentions of the parties were much the same.
What does appear certain is that Alberta is not truly a conservative province at all, at least not right now. Now some like Dick Slater can scream stupidities about vote fraud all they want. That’s just whining.
So once again for you slow learners in the back. ELECTIONS MATTER!! WR lost it in the last week. And much as I hate to say it, Catsmeat was right. So grow up the lot of you, take the licking, and LEARN from it. Politics isn’t about being ideologically pure, it’s about being effective and winning. Harper understands that, but too many of you still don’t, which is a large part of why tonight happened the way it did.
So I put down the straight razor when I realized something… We now have a right-wing opposition party. This is a *huge* change. Someone to put their feet to the fire on spending, corruption, taxes, etc.
We now have 4 years to beat the fear-mongering, the lies. 4 years with a presence in the Legislature. 4 years to recruit quality candidates, fundraise, and grow.
Certainly Sun’s commentators ought to STFU with their wildly off-base predictions come the next election! They may have been following the polls here, but polls of course are totally fallible and their earlier overconfident braying over a Wild Rose victory doesn’t make them look so good now. Don’t count yer chickens and all that.
If we see the senate seats go to the Wild Rose what will that tell us? Hmmmm
Whoever paid for those professionally done polls, they should be asking for their money back.
Let me fix that headline for you: Victory for Saskatchewan!
Couple of observations, Voters could not identify any potential WR cabinet members other the Smith herself. Interesting to look at the turn out, up? Down? did some sit this one out.
Also observe the Liberal vote did it go NDP or to the PC’s? Tuesday morning quarterbacking can start now!
Not super surprising, sad, yes. But here is a base to work from and to build.
He said he was voting strategically, which meant he was voting pc.
Told a libdip colleague today I would be happy with 30 seats for wildrose.
The liberal urban elite with the media party water carriers for their slime tactics made the difference.
I don’t think the Wild Rose should consider this election a loss. The 2008 election had:
PC 72
Liberal 9
NDP 2
No Wild Rose
This 2012 election, there is, so far
PC 59
WR 21
Liberals 3
NDP 4
That’s quite a change. Wild Rose went from zero to 1/3 of the PCs. The PCs lost 13 seats. The Liberals have disappeared as a party and as the Opposition.
In 1993, the Liberal Opposition had 32 seats and the PCs had 51. Now the Liberals have 3.
In 1989 the NDP had 16 seats; now they have 4.
Change takes time. Canada remains a centre nation with mild swings from left to right, but these swings are gentle and the range is slight. Harper is right; he knows that economic stability is the key and that some social issues are ’embedded’.
What we still have to watch is the fight that Mulcair is setting up to claim the centre-left territory. His fight will be internal as the NDP want more of the left from him; and he wants to control more of the centre – that is the domain of Harper. The Liberals, unless they get a dynamic leader, are invisible.
Remember, that Harper spent several elections as the opposition and several elections in a minority. It takes time.
For the Wild Rose to move from zero to 20, and to have reduced the PCs from 72 to 59 is an accomplishment – despite what the polls predicted.
Depressing… Now Alberta has a Liberal Government that will compete with Ontariostan and Quebecistan… My hopes for Alberta have been shattered. A terrible omen for BC. What in the F !
…Alberta politics remain a good news story for Saskatchewan.
Hah, Saskatchewan still has a long ways to go to catch Alberta. Around 2.6 million people to go…
Alberta with over 600 drilling rigs, Saskatchewan with a bit over 100. Yeah, a long way to go…
And fix your damn roads…they’re like the third world.
Watch for the PC’s to take this result as justification to take the province hard left.
And it will be hard to argue that it wasn’t.
Nice work Alberta, you just gave the progressive left the keys to the treasury. You won’t be rid of them for a long long long time.
Shameful.
And certainly part of the problem is that Wild Rose don’t have any profile in the legislature yet. If the 20 or so WRP’s elected tonight keep their noses clean and do a good job as opposition, to the extent they can, maybe the smears and Liberal swing votes won’t carry so much traction next time out.
Looks like the liberal party won.
phil >
“Awww. I thought SDA got results..”
SDA did stupid – 41 years of PC domination and you voted for them! Ha ha
Alberta wins, No NDP, No Liberal. All political sliding to the left came to a dead stop. Now a strong WRP puts things to right. You’re an idiot to think this works in favor of your twisted politics. 🙂