Another from the Cal. Herald:
http://calgaryherald.com/news/politi...-explode-again
Is Alberta’s Pax Prentice about to blow wide open? Maybe so. Forcing a 1970s-style consensus on the politics of modern Alberta, as the premier yearns to do, is like trying to cap a volcano.
And so, politics are descending into another all-out brawl, just as the PCs are about to trigger an election.
The weekend defeat of Danielle Smith and two other Wildrose floor-crossers, Gary Bikman and Rod Fox, uncorked a torrent of emotion in both the Wildrose and PC parties, and showed the weak points in the Tory fortress.
The losses led to serious questioning among the floor-crossers about whether they were tricked all along. Bikman put up a remarkable Facebook post Sunday in which he asked: “Too trusting and a bit naive — perhaps?”
The allusion to PC motives and methods is unmistakable. Bikman says the Wildrose crossers felt they had good reasons for doing what they did, then adds: “We thought we’d get a chance to explain that, but we thought we’d have until 2016 to do so.”
Like most of us, Danielle Smith’s crew believed Premier Jim Prentice would hold the election in spring 2016, as he often said he would, and the law said he should.
Bikman figures that had the Wildrosers refused to cross, they might have struggled with caucus unity, “but we’d have gone down with the ship … we’d have gone down swinging.”
His pain and regret couldn’t be more obvious.
And then Bikman writes: “To you, our former supporters, we are cowards and traitors. Any attempts to explain what was happening inside the party or our fears our caucus would collapse are seen by you as excuses, not explanations.”
It remains astonishing that the nine Wildrose MLAs, including Smith, didn’t see all this last December. Plenty of colleagues tried to jolt them out of their strange delusional sleepwalk.
But the MLAs were new at the job. Most were from rural areas where a person’s word stands strong. And they were up against some of the wiliest, most experienced political operators in Canada.
Now it may all be going off the rails — for both sides.
We’re seeing not just failure and lost careers for the Wildrose defectors, but also disintegration of the PC attempt to both unite the right and kill the Wildrose movement.
PC voters are suddenly throwing crossers out to retirement. This prompted a hint of panic from the party.
After Smith, Bikman and Fox were defeated, ex-Wildroser Bruce McAllister was saved only because the PC party disqualified his opponent Jamie Lall, a loyal party activist for many years.
These defeats were surely linked, at least peripherally, to the budget that came down only two days earlier.
It’s not selling well at all. Many people are appalled by the shotgun hikes to taxes and fees — 59 of them. On all sides of the spectrum, it seems, people don’t like the fact that individuals pay it all, while corporations get off clean.
To Wildrose leaners, the budget looks like a typical liberal effort to raise taxes without cuttings costs. The spending restraint is certainly significant, and probably as much as the economy can stand; but it’s not what the right wing wants.
Many right-leaning PCs feel that way too. It’s fascinating that the party suddenly turfed three MLAs who might have forced a different budget, if they’d stayed on the Wildrose side.
The Wildrose leadership event, happening just as Smith went down, was packed with ardent people who intend to keep fighting. Winner Brian Jean had a campaign plan ready to roll out to candidates Sunday.
But first, he got a chance to show he’s no Danielle Smith.
He fired a candidate who made a foolish remark about moving “brown people” to the front for a photo op. Smith failed to kick out to candidates for more dubious offences in the 2012 election, and that badly hurt the party.
If Wildrose can make Jean better known through a solid campaign, and Rachel Notley’s NDP continues to surge in Edmonton, this campaign may be tougher and hotter than the PCs expected.
Jimmy Boy not long for this political bussiness...
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