For the past two days I have been witness to the Alberta Progressive Conservative Annual General Meeting. Filled with a mix of mostly white haired people general muttering. This muttering is not held to just Ed it is about one issue or another. Few big surprises but here is my general impressions.
- The PCs are currently paranoid of the media. Their general response has been to make life as difficult as possible for them. Then they are surprised by the negative press?
- Get sponsors. Some big corps are funding this shindig which is quite interesting for so many reasons.
- Twitter is getting to be the tool of these kind of things because they are about the only way to get real time what is going on by minute by minute.
- Mike ins and line ins are big important things for media make sure you get lots of both.
- While no one is saying it and all of them appear to be avoiding any direct sense of mentioning the Wildrose Alliance it is on their minds and mentions of rationalizations try to make sense of what happened over the past few months.
- For some reason the Tories appear to be closing up every year more and more. Only very specific events are open to the media. While that may avoid any signs of “cracks” it might also serve to create hostility with the media or leave them bored enough to look for different types of angles which are not as helpful.
- Hospitality suites are sure hopping and the beer was a flowing. Late nights and lubricated discussions must make for interesting times.
- Oh and if you are Friends of Medicare type you are never going to win over the public when all your protestors are union folk. It has been 12 years now and they are more irrelevant now, more than ever
I will add some more observations but for now I think the average Albertan and the average PC delegate do not have a whole lot in common at the moment.
On a personal note thanks to the CKUA for sponsoring my attendance to the convention. I really appreciate being on the ground floor of this weekend. It has been an interesting day to date.
I would also encourage people to listen in to CKUA on Sunday at noon.
Tags: Ed Stelmach, Media, Politics, Tories
