All posts tagged leadership contest

Alberta could do much worse than have Alison Redford as premier – and tomorrow it probably will

by David Climenhaga on September 30, 2011 in Uncategorized with 2 Comments
Alison Redford during Thursday’s TV debate. (Edmonton Journal photo.) Below: The other Iron Lady.

If television debates mattered, Alison Redford would win the Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership vote tomorrow hands down.

She certainly turned in a more impressive performance than either of her two fellow candidates (in every sense of the phrase) in Thursday evening’s televised leaders’ debate on Global TV.

She was tough, clear about her intentions if chosen to replace Premier Ed Stelmach, and – as she has been throughout this campaign – prepared to challenge the Tory Old Boys Club and the way it does business.

She looked grim at times, but how could she not? She turned in this forcible TV performance just hours after her mother had suddenly taken sick and died. She maintained her dignity and her focus despite her personal tragedy. She exuded leadership.

She showed, as Edmonton Journal columnist Graham Thomson put it well, that “there is an iron fist inside that velvet glove.” Indeed, dressed in black, she looked at times remarkably like Margaret Thatcher – but a Margaret Thatcher prepared to stand up unequivocally for public health insurance!

The other two? Well, in fairness, they turned in solid performances, too.

Gary Mar’s was impressive, if not particularly convincing. He succeeded more through his capacity to bob and weave around the sometimes embarrassing points on which his opponents chose to challenge him, and his remarkable ability to sound confident and reassuring while revealing very little of his actual intentions.

Doug Horner’s effort was too tightly scripted. This is a guy who sounds natural and confident when he speaks off the cuff. Being a fairly distant No. 3 in a three-person race doesn’t seem like the moment to follow an ultra-cautious, take-no-chances strategy, but that’s what Mr. Horner did. He started in a respectable No. 3 position – and that’s where he finished too.

So, Albertans saw two competent performances, and one that really shone.

Alas for Ms. Redford – and likely for Alberta, too, under the circumstances – these things are usually decided by the grey eminences who lurk behind the scenes in any political party, and especially in this one, anointing their favoured candidates. They are not decided by which candidate is most engaging, has the best ideas, or is least likely to cause real harm.

And in the case of this contest, the insiders, the pork barrellers and the actual old boys who have run things through most of the Tories’ 40-year reign and intend to go on running them, have already picked a candidate, and that is Mr. Mar.

Ms. Redford’s dignified and powerful performance Thursday night notwithstanding, Mr. Mar is the man who can be counted on not to upset any well-positioned apple carts, to keep all the secrets that need to be kept, and in the tradition of Ralph Klein, Ron Liepert and Steve West, to keep on chipping away at the things our Conservative government’s financiers would dearly love to subvert, like our public health care system.

Mr. Mar is also the most vulnerable of the three candidates to a voter rebellion from the right or the left – but the Conservative Old Boys seem confident that possibility presents a far smaller risk to their power and comfort than would having a leader like Ms. Redford or Mr. Horner who might actually try to engage the citizenry and do something different from the same old same old.

Sad to say, notwithstanding the slight risk of an unexpected turn of events presented by their party’s semi-public leadership voting process, their cynical confidence is probably entirely justified.

From the perspective of supporters of the opposition parties, Ms. Redford presents a bigger threat than Mr. Mar – for the same engaging reasons that she threatens the party’s comfortable Old Boys.

The fact is, though, given the PCs’ current standing in the polls and the likelihood of a swift election when a leader is finally chosen, any Tory leader is likely to form a majority. For those of us who do not support the Conservatives, this should temper our jubilation when they choose the worst available candidate. We should, as they say, be careful what we wish for.

That said, you could argue that the PC party establishment just doesn’t see the need to suffer the inconvenience of putting up with a leader who has real character, some good ideas and an inclination to pick the side of what’s good for the province, not the people who run it.

Alberta could do much worse than have Alison Redford emerge as premier tomorrow – and it probably will.

This post also arrears on Rabble.ca.

The Alberta Tory leadership race, Round 2: Still close … but not too close to call

by David Climenhaga on September 19, 2011 in Uncategorized with 3 Comments
The final moments of the Progressive Conservative leadership race: politically engaged Albertans may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Remaining candidates Gary Mar, Alison Redford and Doug Horner.

With two weeks of electioneering to go until the final ballot in the Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership election, any of the three candidates still standing after Saturday’s first-ballot vote could emerge as the winner.

So it seems highly unlikely any of the three will drop out of the race “for the good of the party” before Oct. 1, as some naïve observers were suggesting in the wake of the ballot counting Saturday night.

That said, with more than 13,000 votes over second-place finisher Alison Redford, Gary Mar remains the front-runner by a considerable, some would say comfortable, margin.

He is far better positioned to win than either Ms. Redford, the former justice minister in Premier Ed Stelmach’s cabinet, or third-finishing Doug Horner, former deputy premier and holder of numerous important cabinet posts, notwithstanding the fact both challengers have proved they are formidable campaigners.

Talk of third-place candidates “coming up the middle,” as Mr. Stelmach did in 2006, is almost irresistible to professional political pundits, not to mention mere amateurs like your blogger. However, sometimes we should all know better – or at least take a deep breath before we bloviate.

The first-ballot strength enjoyed by Mr. Mar – a Calgary lawyer, former minister in Ralph Klein’s cabinet and the sometime chief apologist of Big Oil’s Tar Division in Washington, D.C. – puts him in a significantly more likely position to win on the second ballot than the first-place winners in the Conservative leadership contests of either 2006 or 1992, both of whom turned into losers in the second round.

In 2006, famously, Calgary oilman and former cabinet minister Jim Dinning, whom everyone simply assumed would win, led the second-place candidate, Ted Morton, by 3,856 votes on the first ballot. This enabled Mr. Stelmach to make his unexpected dash for the finish line. Alas for Mr. Stelmach, while he proved to be a champion sprinter, the premiership of any Canadian province requires one to run a marathon.

In 1992, Nancy Betkowski, another former Tory cabinet minister, led Mr. Klein on the first ballot – but by only a single vote. We all know how that one turned out, and her attempt to unseat Mr. Klein with a different name at the head of a different party as well.

Mr. Mar’s lead today, by contrast, is of a different magnitude entirely. It would be fair to say that as a result, the race remains his to lose.

Indeed, it’s an interesting question to ask, why a candidate with Mr. Mar’s formidable advantages – years of planning, deep pockets, enviable position as an outsider unsullied by the mistakes of the Stelmach Era, and the blessing of the PC Party establishment – couldn’t finish the job on the first ballot?

Possible reasons for his lack of decisive success – and Ms. Redford’s unexpected second-place finish – might just include the fact he was so identified with the party establishment and its determination to pursue a number of policies that a lot of Conservative traditionalists were uncomfortable with. Examples: Increasing oil royalties, deficit budgets and anything that smacks of interference with large landowners’ “property rights.”

Still, Mr. Mar remains the consensus choice, at least of the PC Party’s leadership.

Ms. Redford, by contrast, adopted an abrasive outsider’s style, harshly criticizing the party establishment and appealing to the many Albertans who may not be Tory Party insiders but who nevertheless registered to vote in the belief this contest is the best – maybe the only – expression of real democracy in a one-party province.

Ignoring the wishes of the party’s power elite to call for a judicial inquiry into intimidation of health care professionals, as alleged by the new leader of the Opposition Liberals, is a good example.

But it’s less clear if this can be as effective in the narrow window before the final vote, when the establishment is playing for keeps and long-time Tories who supported other candidates are looking for a candidate to back.

Mr. Horner, by contrast, epitomizes the idea that slow and steady may yet win the race. If Ms. Redford is tapped out, having already scooped up all the rebels and outsiders, Mr. Horner may have the potential for considerable growth among party insiders who for whatever reason don’t fancy Mr. Mar, but still self-identify as Conservatives.

Making things murkier is the fact the makeup of the electorate that will vote on Oct. 1 is no longer clear.

That’s partly because candidates are allowed to continue selling memberships right up until the vote on Oct. 1. They’re all now in possession of electoral machines capable of selling large numbers of memberships and delivering their votes.

It’s also because it’s impossible to know how the supporters of the three defeated right-wing candidates will behave. Will they stay home and pout? Will they move back to the Wildrose Party? Will they try to cut a deal with one of the three candidates to enact the kind of policies they always lobby for?

Because of the size and unpredictability of this voting bloc, and renewed worry about how the fate of the three most extreme right-wingers might revitalize the Wildrose Party, we may see the rhetoric in this race swing back to the right.

Finally, there remains the possibility of another September Skeleton lurking in one of the candidates’ closets, like the CBC’s revelations about defeated candidate Ted Morton’s secret “Freddy Lee” email account that altered the dynamics of the first-ballot race.

This is unlikely to be raised by any of the candidates themselves – after all, they may have to work together again. But perhaps some reporter is even now drafting a question that may send the campaign in an unexpected direction.

The upshot? It’s still close. … but not too close to call.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

The ‘Freddy Lee’ Loser Factor: Albertans plain didn’t like a sneak

by David Climenhaga on September 18, 2011 in Uncategorized with 6 Comments
Finalists Gary Mar, Alison Redford and Doug Horner. The remaining Alberta Progressive Conservative candidates are, well, pretty much exactly as illustrated! Below: Dr. Freddy Lee Morton.

Never mind the winner. Yeah, Calgary lawyer Gary Mar got way more votes than anyone else – enough to clinch it decisively had Alberta’s Conservative leadership ballot count last night been in a normal first-past-the-post election.

But for the moment, there is no official winner, just three contestants still standing in the race to become Alberta’s Next Top Premier ™ and two more weeks in which they need to Keep Calm and Carry On.

The real story today is the loser. Say what you will about Albertans and their one-party ways, they’re true to their principles, and principled Albertans don’t like a sneak.

And let’s face it, by almost any reasonable yardstick of behaviour, that’s exactly what Ted Morton showed himself to be.

This is a guy who in January as minister of finance sandbagged his own premier for personal political advantage. Readers will recall how the American-born far-right ideologue in effect told Premier Ed Stelmach to let him bring down the Shock Doctrine budget he wanted or he’d quit and so would his supporters in caucus.

With the Wildrose Alliance appearing to breathe down the Tories’ necks at the time, such a maneuver would have left the premier with a political crisis he might not have been able to unravel. Disinclined to destroy the province’s economy and drive away his party’s moderate core to satisfy Dr. Morton’s notions of ideological purity, Mr. Stelmach astounded everyone except perhaps his wife Marie and pulled the plug on politics.

The self-described “every liberal’s nightmare, a right-winger with a PhD,” was also the candidate who most radically changed his story about what he believed in. In the 2006 leadership race that Mr. Stelmach won, Dr. Morton did pretty well by acting like the hard-right market fundamentalist he is.

Back then, he advocated a U.S.-style model for health care that would look like the way Albertans get veterinary care for their pets and livestock. This time, all of a sudden he was Medicare’s Greatest Friend. When the Calgary Herald started describing him as public health care’s great defender, many of us thought Alberta Conservatives would be fooled. Evidently not!

But the knife in his political heart was just a little thing: that Freddy Lee government email address he used that was uncovered mid-campaign by CBC investigative journalist Charles Rusnell.

Dr. Morton and his supporters tried to blow it off as something everybody does, and with his legal name to boot. But Albertans saw it for what it was: an intentionally deceptive tactic. And those who voted in the Tory election gave its dismissive and contemptuous defence the hearing it deserved.

Dr. Morton did a lot of work getting ready for this run. He had his supporters lined up and his political ducks in a row. It’s said here that Rick Orman, another candidate who staked out essentially the same economic position, did far better last night than he would have had Dr. Morton not been caught doing business behind a couple of names most Albertans didn’t know were his.

Dr. Morton would have done far better last night if he’d forthrightly owned up to using an email address he shouldn’t have, and apologized for his behaviour. He also would have done better if he’d just admitted he is what he is – a committed free-market foe of public health care. On health care, that’s exactly what he did in 2006, and he made it to the finals.

At this point, Danielle Smith and her far-right Wildrose Party will try to elevate Dr. Morton to sainthood to make their case no “true conservative” can be elected to lead the Conservatives. They’ll also try to use the relatively low turnout yesterday – 35,000 fewer voters than in 2006 – to argue their support is still stronger than polling shows it to be.

Well, good luck to them. A split right wing is never a bad thing. But don’t bet on the right-wing vote being all that spit, or the Wildrose being anything but obliterated, whether Mr. Mar, second-ranked Alison Redford or third-place Doug Horner wins the final battle in two weeks. Both Ms. Redford and Mr. Horner are former ministers in Mr. Stelmach’s cabinet.

And don’t assume that Mr. Mar will emerge the winner just because he has over 4,400 more votes than his two remaining challengers combined – everyone has two more weeks to cook up deals, sell memberships, and book the buses needed to bring their supporters to the polling stations.

But it’s probably safe to conclude that Dr. Frederick Lee Morton, also known as Ted, is finished in Alberta politics. Just guessing, but here’s a prediction he’ll soon retire south of the 49th Parallel, work for a right-wing “think tank,” and live very well indeed, thanks to the public service pension he doesn’t think anyone else should have. Or maybe he’ll go back to the University of Calgary, which is pretty much the same thing.

Meanwhile, one imagines Premier Stelmach, an honourable guy who had a harder time as premier than he really deserved, is pretty pleased with the outcome of last night’s vote.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.