Alberta PC Leadership Race Vlog..Round Two!

  What a crazy week in the Alberta PC Leadership Race!  In my Vlog post below, I just wanted to share my thoughts on the weeks events and highlighted some of the internal issues that seem to dog my party during this race. 

 While I am disappointed that some of the more conservative candidates did not make the second ballot,  I have made my mind up on who I am supporting in the next round. 

While I am sure that my comments about the Alison Redford supporter's Twitter Blitzkrieg this week will anger some of them, I believe that I am free to speak my mind.  I know its a crazy concept to have a differing view, but I think that is a healthy thing to have.




Regardless of where you stand on the ramaining candidates, I would hope that everyone gets out and votes on October 1!
Best of luck to all of the remaining candidates!

Alberta PC Leadership Race Vlog Post

  With only two days left in the Alberta PC Leadership Race, I have finally decided to do a post!  Here is a quick ramble about my thoughts on the race.....



This weekend should finally bring some excitement to this race!  I am interested to see who will move on to the top three.

Shane

Survivor: Red Deer.. Ed Stelmach PC Leadership Vote

  As you can tell, I am not graphically gifted!  If I was, I would have changed the slogan to "Outvote - Outwait - Outlast"

 With the Alberta PC party convention approaching this Saturday, much has ( or had, up until this week) been said about the future of Premier Stelmach's future as the leader of the Alberta PC Party, pending the result of his mandatory leadership review.  While I have made my thoughts clear on this on a previous post, I was thinking about what Ed must be feeling after watching the latest episode of Survivor tonight!

 If you are familiar with the show, you know that at the end of each episode the "tribe" is required to vote off one of their members by secret ballot. ( sound familiar?)    Usually, the person voted out falls into one of the following categories:

• 
  
   Weakest Player
  
  
  
• 
  
   Bossiest Player
  
  
  
• 
  
   Strongest Competitor
  
  
  
• 
  
   Player that just does not fit.
  
  
  

 The Tribe may not always get it right, but they ultimately hold the power as to how long you stay in the game!  Sometime people forget this key fact and act like they have never ending  immunity, to their own peril.

Often, you will get a player that is very nice and unassuming that just flies under the radar and wins the whole prize!  Other times, people just need a scapegoat and want to punish someone to protect their own position in the government, oops.. I meant game.

You also find that once a player realizes that their head is on the chopping block, they will "scramble" around the island and try to convince enough people to vote for them so they can stay in the game. While I am not sure if this is happening to Ed, I can confirm that no one was really pushing me to attend the PC convention this weekend, nor have I seen any "urgency" in getting delegates to attend. This leads me to believe two things:

1) This PC board member's delegate vote was not important to the party as they likely have a bus full of waiting delegates.

2)  The party is confident that they have enough support votes to support Ed, thus  will avoid a blindside vote at tribal council on Saturday!

Either way, this weekends event will make for excellent political drama and discussion.  And come Saturday...

"The tribe will have spoken!"

Good Luck....

Shane

Alberta PC Party...Be Careful What You Wish For!

  What a great time to be interested in politics!  The political developments over the past few months have produced a cornucopia of political stories and introduced a wealth of scenarios that never existed even six months ago.  The election of Daniele Smith as leader of the Wildrose Alliance Party has brought provincial political issues back to the water coolers and dining room tables in Alberta, which I believe is excellent for citizen engagement.  The constant media attention to politics lately has now moved towards Premier Stelmach's popularity in Alberta and his future as the leader of the PC Party.

  With the Alberta PC Party's convention approaching on November 7, many people are wondering how the Premier will fare in his mandatory leadership review?  Former Premier Ralph Klein set a pretty high standard when he commented publicly that anything less than a 70% approval rate will be unacceptable.  (Mr.Klein knows a thing or two about leadership reviews, having been "dumped" by his own party in a 2006 review.)   For all the talk in the media and the blogs about "turfing" Premier Stelmach by ensuring he receives less than 50% support, I must say..." Be careful what you wish for"!

 IF...and I must say IF... Mr Stelmach were to receive a low support level and resign as leader, who is going to replace him?  I cannot think of any one candidate that jumps out as the logical choice, but then again, who predicted that Ed would replace Ralph? 

 Lets look at some of the potential replacements..

• 
  
   Alison Redford - Minister of Justice and Attorney General. 
  
  
  
• 
  
   Dave Rodney
  
  
  
• 
  
  W.Brett Wilson.    This was previously discussed on Daveberta's blog here.
  
  
  
• 
  
  Dave Hancock
  
  
  
• 
  
  Ron Liepert
  
  
  
• 
  
  Jim Dinning  
  
  
  
• 
  
  Ted Morton 
  
  
  
• 
  
  MP Jim Prentice     
  
  
  

  Now, I am sure that there are many, many others that may fall into the rumour mill list!  I am not going to comment on the list above, as I want to know your thoughts? 

 Personally, I believe that Mr. Stelmach will survive the leadership review this year.  I cannot see the PC party dumping the leader at this point.  This will look like a "reactionary" move and with a Provincial election still at least 3 years away, a "panic" move is so unnecessary.  Slow down...take a few breaths...think things through folks.  Perhaps Mr.Stelmach is not the only problem here? 

Many people think that a new leader will solve all of the image problems with the PC Party.  Others think that the party is beyond repair and doomed to failure.  I believe the problem lies with the Governments ability to effectively communicate with the people of Alberta.   I think that all party members should take a long look in the mirror and work together over next year to fix these problems internally first.

 What are your thoughts?  Do you think the Premier will survive the leadership review?  If not, who do you think will replace him as the next leader of the Alberta PC Party? 

Shane