Will the Real Danielle Smith Please Stand Up

Recently defeated in the Alberta Provincial Election, having snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory, Danielle Smith is now making a tour of the media explaining away the outcome.


Remember, depending on the never ending polls or the mainstream media ever ready to be her cheerleader, the Wildrose Party was supposed to win a substantial majority, ranging from 46 to 60+ seats.  Instead the Party arrives at the gates of the Alberta Legislature with Official Opposition and only 17 seats.


One can argue that the majority of those seats, all but one in rural Southern Alberta, have a strong social-conservative bias.  Social-Conservatism appears to be a strong base in the Wildrose Party, witness the fact that after Danielle declared herself to be pro-Gay and pro-Choice prior to the Leader's Debate, she was called on the carpet for having "gone rogue" away from the Party message.


This morning on CBC Radio, Smith was heard to say and I paraphrase "In the future we will only go as far as Albertans are willing to go", in reference to policy within the Wildrose Party such as 'conscience politics'.  This tells me that the hard policy issues will be watered down by the Party in order to get elected, then once elected with a majority they can be brought forward.


A similar tack was used by the Harper Government, avoiding the Abortion issue until a majority was achieved and now Conservative MPs, notably  Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth  wants to debate the pro-life position and is actively trying to bring the issue to the floor of the House of Commons.  See the following  http://www.canada.com/news/Abortion+debate+returns+Parliament/6518541/story.html .

Of concern here, Harper doesn't seem to be beating back the debate as Ralph Klien was able to do within the PC Party when he was the Leader, followed by Alison Redford's clear position on the matter.

I for one will be watching with a re-newed interest as the language of the Wildrose Party becomes available through media reports and debate in the Legislature.  The Party has a very Conservative base to play to and we need to see how they articulate positions of concern to moderate, centrist Albertans.

Let the games begin!

Premier Redford - Say 'Sayonara' to Stephen

There are lingering stress points between Premier Alison Redford and Mayor Naheed Nenshi, given that Nenshi openly endorsed Wildrose policies during the recent provincial election, suggesting that a Wildrose Government would be better for so-called big cities.

Alison is a practical forgiving person and I am quite sure she will not allow these past indiscretions to cloud her future discussions with Mayor Nenshi.

However, Nenshi could speed up the healing process by offering Redford a piece of very sound advice.  It would go something like this; Thank Stephen Carter for his efforts to date, pay him for his services and part company.  He can remind her that he took similar action after the Mayor's Campaign was over and therefore was not saddled with the infamous ego of the always "ready-to-tweet" Carter.

There is ample evidence that should dictate the Premier heed the advice.

First, Carter was all over the media following Redford's leadership victory, claiming to be the mastermind and taking the stage away from Alison.  This was followed by Carter's personal attack on Linda Sloan and the AUMA via Carter's favourite tool, the tweet.  This caused embarrassment for the Premier and took her off message.  Finally, the disastrous start to the Provincial Campaign and clear rationale to take the Mayor's advice should he offer same.

Alison, you do not need to be looking over your shoulder wondering when Carter's ego will display itself once again and take you away from what you need to do in the coming weeks and months.

Remember, you heard it here first, or perhaps not!

Much Ado About Nothing

Hello,

It's been awhile.

I arrived home late this evening, actually 1:10 in the morning, after reviewing the results of the 2012 Alberta Provincial Election.

Greeting me was the large 4' x 8' Kent Hehr sign proudly displayed on my front porch.  Supporting Kent was an easy task, living in Calgary Buffalo, Kent is a good human being and a very good MLA, no question.

I visited Kent's campaign office earlier in the evening to receive the results confirming my predictions that Kent would win in Calgary Buffalo for the Alberta Liberal Party.  However, my vote was for Kent, not the Party, he was the best person for the job.

I left Kent's campaign office for CTV Prime Time, where I was a guest to wrap up the election outcomes.

Earlier in the day I met with a number of political observers for lunch at the Joyce on 4th to discuss the outcome of the 2012 election.

There were senior political strategists, pollsters, media personnel and others.  In unison they supported a Wildrose majority in Alberta following the vote count.  Most had planned to be in the Highwood campaign headquarters of the newly-elected Premier Danielle Smith.

There were a hand full who predicted a PC minority.

No need to name names here, some are rather embarrassed with the outcome after having publicly declared a Wildrose majority, let's leave them rest in peace.

However, I did predict a PC victory albeit much larger than my numbers.

More thoughts on the outcome tomorrow, tonight time to rest and breath a sigh of relief that my Province was not hijacked by the Social Conservations under a Wildrose umbrella.

Good night, sweet dreams, we are in good hands with Alison steering the great ship Alberta.