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It is marginally preferable to the Oceania, Animal Farm, Alberta we would see under Redford. War is peace! Freedom is slavery! Ignorance is strength!

...Okay, maybe I am going overboard with the Orwell references but I can't help but get some sort of insidious Orwellian impression whenever I hear the lady speak. The particular vitriol directed at Danielle Smith reminds me of the "Two Minutes Hate" towards Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984 and the simplistic mantra of "Four legs good, two legs bad" from from Animal Farm. Or how her comfy relationship with the teacher's union reminds me of the Inner Party of Ingsoc. Or how the recent endorsement of Redford by school administrators makes me think "Ministry of Truth" all of a sudden.

For all of the stupid gaffes by Allan "Born This Way" Hunsperger and Ron Leech, at least their prejudices are out there in the open. The PCs brand of racism is far more subtle, and I have no reason to believe Redford is anywhere near the center of the political spectrum. She "loves" minorities on the surface as long as she can exploit them for the party's (i.e. her) advancement but deep down she has nothing but contempt for them like the rest of the proles.

   

I don't have any objection to Danielle Smith as a person or a party leader. I just don't think that she's going to be able to control the bible-thumpers after they're elected. I'm not even sure that she wants to control them, considering that it';s not exactly a secret that she went out of her way to seek advice and support from infamous Christianist con man (Missing) Link Byfield.

I hold the concept of separation of religion from state to be an absolute. If God exists then He certainly does not give His official stamp of approval to ANY political party. "MY kingdom is not of THIS earth", or so it goes, which means that our petty temporal politics mean absolutely nothing to the divine. I'm fairly certain also, and unfortunately, that too many of the social conservative trogs in the WRA have zero intention of respecting this absolutely vital tenet of secular democracy.

   

I'm hoping for a minority, but I doubt it.

Sadly, it'll likely be a majority for the whackadoos - the only question is how big a majority it will be. Part of me hopes it will be a large one and they will think they have a mandate to do anything they want - then when they wreck the place, they'll all be sent packing in four years.

The only question is what will Alberta look like in four years if they get carte blanche to enact their idea of change?

   

This is the only info I can find on the Senate Nominees & those backed by WRP are also leading at this point.

Return on Insight
April 19, 2012
Doug Black PC 12%
Len Bracko Ind. 6%
Perry Chahal Ind. 4%
William Exelby Ind. 4%
David Fletcher Ind. 5%
Paul Frank Ind. 3%
Raymond Germain WR 13%
Rob Gregory WR 14%
Elizabeth Johannson EG 9%
Vitor Marciano WR 12%
Mike Shaikh PC 13%
Scott Tannas PC 12%
Ian Urquhart Ind. 6%

   

I'm hoping for an extreme minority so we can see the truth of this party before any damage is done. If they win, it may be time to go live in the fallout shelter....

   

Well, given that a vote for the PCs is a vote for a boot to the face...

   

Actually, I do see her as quite centrist - she is an old school Red Tory (she even worked with Joe Clark) and that is one of the key reasons several veteran MLAs retired after she became leader. Ultimately, while she may be a conservative, but she is one with a heart.

Redford isn't going to raise taxes through the roof and buy into Kyoto and all that, but she will make sure that schools and health care are properly funded and, out of all five party leaders, she is the most capable to engage those from ouside Alberta and get them onside with oilsands expansion and pipelines. In short, Redford is the type of conservative I can vote for - unlike Smith and Harper, who are much farther to the right of her.

Conversely, Danielle Smith is a hard core libertarian who wants small government above all else, and frankly, I agree with Thanos that I don't think she can keep a lid on the social conservatives within the Wildrose ranks. The fact that she didn't criticize or censure Hunsperger is a prime example of that.

Smith was chosen as leader becuase she is young, charming and kind of pretty, but I see her as little more than a figurehead or puppet of the social conservatives who really run the party (much in the same way Ignatief was controlled by the Chretien/Trudeau diehards in the Liberal backroom last election). As charming as she is, she will have little traction getting the Europeans or Americans onside with the oilsands due to her opinions on climate change.

   

The whole lot of them are nobodies as far as I'm concerned. It's a waste of time.

   

Frankly, I'm surprised someone didn't run for Senate and say, "I'm the unofficial Liberal/NDP candidate."

He might not get appointed while Harper's in office, but who knows who'll be running the show in 2016.

   

Completely agree with hoping for an extreme minority. I'm all for change right now but this is a far too extreme change for my tastes.

   

Well, I'm hoping for a minority too - that will keep everyone honest (even Raj), but given the way the seats are set-up, I doubt it.

The Wildrose will almost certainly scoop up everything rural south of Red Deer at least, maybe even everything rural south of Edmonton, as well as pick up a few seats in Calgary - which as Thanos notes will give them the majority. Even a minority is scary, because the PCs will likely oust Redford and drift further to the right again and work closely with the Wildrose.

Stili, my fingers are crossed and if voter turnout jumps, we have a chance to limit them to a minority.

Ideally, I'd like to see the PCs get a slim majority (say 45-47 seats out of the 87) and get the scare of their lives and actually govern as PCs can govern and work for the entire province, not just parts of it (like Lougheed did). But I really doubt that wll happen.

   

I hope it would not be an imposition, but could you clarify the part I bolded? I was in diapers when Lougheed left office, hence I am curious.

EDIT: And look who decided to show up at the eleventh hour? Good grief.

   

EDIT: And look who decided to show up at the eleventh hour? Good grief.[/quote]
Maybe at the behest of Smith???

   

DePape's sojourn to Alberta can only help Danielle Smith at this point.

   

My tale of voting booth woe:

I went into it having decided to vote for the Alberta Party. I don't know anything about these guys, and I don't want to know anything about these guys. All I know is that they're none of the four others which meant that they were going to get my vote just so I couldn't be existentially blamed for supporting the others. I also planned to vote for all three of the Tories on the Senate ballot, even though it means practically nothing. The one Tory, Mike Shaikh, is hardcore law-and-order (he apparently had some sort of position within the Calgary police commission or in the police union and that was more than good enough for me) so I feel no shame about voting for him. And, by not choosing any of their senate wannabes, I could at least feel somewhat good about giving the WRA the ol' raspberry.

Trouble is, after they gave me the ballot, the whole idea fell apart. The Senate thing went as planned. Turns out though that the Alberta Party isn't running a candidate in my riding. I almost panicked and felt physically sick in the booth. My choices got boiled down to:

a) voting for a Tory kleptocrat;
b) voting for a Dipper, whose party's policies I've been against my entire life;
c) voting for a Liberal, whose party is currently led by someone (Raj Sherman) who could quite possibly be genuinely mentally ill;
d) vote for a Wildroser, in particular a man so genuinely stupid that during the last session of the legislature he got up in the assembly and seriously compared an eminently sensible change in land-use regulations to the genocide of the Ukranians that Stalin perpetrated.

so what in the fuck am i gonna do here

I'm not saying who I voted for. The damage is done and there's no way any of it can be repaired. All I can say for myself is that I came out of the voting booth feeling filthy, like I'd just done something incredibly awful and wrong, like I'd just made myself part of a crime. This whole election, and this day in particular, has been one of the worst moments of my entire life.

And regarding that Wildrose wave that too many are cheering on, here's something about waves in case no one's noticed. Waves don't clean. If they're big enough they do nothing but destroy everything in their path. And more often than not they dredge up a bunch of muck and filth and poison that deserved to be buried and forgotten in the darkness of the sediment. As in the ocean, so too in the petty and horrid world of politics.

Just simply an awful, awful day.

   

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