Almost two years ago on March 4 2008 after the Alberta provincial election sent the Progressive Conservatives back to the Legislature with a stronger majority and with the Wildrose Alliance wiped out.

I wrote at that point on Project Alberta on why I think these things happened the way they did and I want to repost it here, with Link:

I have been thinking about holding off until the recount. Out of respect for the deceased, so to speak.

I think of the good people I know who suffered because of what happened last night, lost elections, lost jobs, there are men and women on both sides of the political fence who are gone. I think it is sad in some cases.

With that being said I would like to make several points:
The Socreds have proved being out of the legislature eliminates your relevancy. If you cannot at least hold one seat you are barking at the moon for four years with nothing accomplished, donations from serious people dry up in the face of reality.

Point 1: Six years ago Randy Thorsteinson effectively made the Alberta Alliance with his own pocket book. While some may argue about him, I think without his large donations the party would have been little better than the Alberta First Party or the Socreds or the Seperatists.

Thorsteinson also had some advantages of having a network of people, having committed followers, myself one of them at the time. And with that an opportunity in the rural ridings thanks to BSE and deregulation.

Point 2: The core volunteers in Cardston-Taber-Warner and a friendly local media in Cardston helped Hinman to win. As well was the weakness of the existing candidate and the arrogance of the PCs who were starting to fracture over Klein.

Hinman had none of those as far as I am aware this time and Jacobs and the PCs out did Hinman by out working him. The lesson in this from day one was that you cannot take the legislature seriously when you are a 1 member party. You have to take the riding seriously and work it to death.

Ray Speaker won Little Bow in election after election because he never forgot the little people who voted for him and worked every day to keep connected with them. Speaker was undefeated from 1967-1989 sitting as a Socred, Independent, Representative and PC.

Point 3: if you are going to dent the Tories you need a full slate. 61 candidates was pp. A lot of this is blamed on the merger… well let me point out something about that too.

Point 4: Leadership elections that fracture your party are BAD. The reason why Ed won, he was a middle vote between Morton and Dinning, he has remained able to eliminate political baggage (Oberg) yet still be looked upon as a regular guy who “gets stuff done” by the voting public that bother to cast a vote.

I will accept my responsibility for some of what happened to create a split in the Alliance but in my opinion too many egos got bruised in the leadership race and few people, including myself, saw the consequences of dividing up. It created an ongoing saga with Marilyn, Randy, Chandler and Paul that continued for YEARS as those who supported Marilyn looked for other parties to take over, Paul and others looked to weed out the “undesirables” and any work done to heal the wounds backfired or fell apart.

The Wildrose Party and the Alberta Alliance Party were not two different parties, they were the same party which had split over the leadership, only the imminent election appears to have “healed” the rift. Of course with the elected President quiting just before the campaign to really make things weird.

Point 5: No money, no volunteers, little public support for the ideas espoused, little earned media until after the debates. Not a good combination.

If you want to win an election, you should make up your mind 2 years prior to the campaign, get yourself in the public eye through earned media, as well as getting familiar with the issues of the riding. Work the doors at least six months in advance of the vote, do not create a new party 3 weeks before the election so as to confuse voters.

Collect volunteers from kids on Campuses, seniors and others who have the time. Get a good campaign manager and most of all create networks to fund raise. If you cannot do that you will not get over 1000 votes unless you have a private source of funds or the party is like the Tories with a 3 million dollar war-chest.

Point 6: Until the opposition coaleses in this province the Tories will be the default vote. I think the Liberals and the Alliance supporters should reconsider their ideas that are too left or too right and come up with a middle ground which can get each side in alignment. There are some good MLAs amongst the liberals, as there are Lefties, Bridget Pastoor and Rick Miller were both strong MLAs that I thought were not that different from Alliance members. There are others as well.

If the Liberals, throw away their name, colours, and gently back seat or push aside lefties in their own party, do you think an Alliance-Liberal merger under a better banner, as was done in BC with the Liberals and Saskatchewan with the Sask Party could create a centre right fiscal conservative party, for stronger democratic principles, which could appeal to both rural and urban people.

Personally I think until that happens, and you really start to push the blocks out from the Tory rural base you will NEVER get an oppostion strong enough to win. Without a total Tory collapse.

Sorry if this seems like I am emptying a spleen, and I am sorrier to do it on this site, but I have lost hope that the small c conservatives matter at present in the province. The people have gone left and the Tories have as under Klein followed. You can wait around hoping that they will come around to the “proper role of Government” whatever that is. Or you can pro-actively decide as Harper did that in order to enact some change you had to make some tough and political difficult decisions that your base may not totally support.

I personally believe that the opposition in Alberta needs to come to that conclusion or the Tories will outlast the Ontario tories in government. (42 years of the big blue machine).

After two years the Alliance is about to vote in a new leader this weekend. I think the boom in the party, going from 1000 to 11,000 in just a few months and the win in Calgary Glenmore show that the party is moving in the right direction.

With Danielle Smith leading the party and moderation of the policies I think the party can be on the right track.

Time and talent and money, keys you need to be successful. The Wildrose Alliance has all of them on their side as long as Danielle wins I see nothing more than a further rising tide. The Tories are in the worst shape they have been in since Ralph Klein took over, and I think to this point that may continue to get worse before they will be able to stem the tide. This is the Getty Tories all over again, this time with some real competition on the rise.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 4:34 PM and is filed under politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.