It is no surprise that in the last the few months the support for the Ed Stelmach PC government has been plummeting with rise of the Wildrose Alliance Party whose support have been surging. There have been floor crossings from the PC's namely two disgruntled MLAs, Heather Forsyth of Calgary-Fish Creek and Rob Anderson of Airdrie-Chestermere.
Graham Thomson from the Edmonton Journal is writing about musings of a possible palace coup if the circumstances don't change for the better. There have been rumblings about all parties (with the exception of Wildrose Alliance), about who is going to lead in the next election two years away.
Ed Stelmach is the leader who has the most to worry about. Seems like some in the PC party really don't want to go into the next election with Ed Stelmach at the helm.
"There are mutterings that more than a few Conservative MLAs in Calgary and southern Alberta figure they'll lose the next election under Stelmach. Tacticians for the Wildrose are crunching numbers that point to a minority Wildrose government if an election were held today. A CTV/ Access poll released Monday indicates almost 52 per cent of respondents who identified themselves as Conservative say they are likely or somewhat likely to vote Wildrose next election.
The Conservatives apparently haven't been in this much trouble since they faced the Liberals led by Laurence Decore in 1993."
This from Highwood Riding Association Board. They are are not happy campers.
CALGARY - In a blistering, unprecedented letter to Premier Ed Stelmach, a key Progressive Conservative riding association says the party is "nearing the precipice of moral insolvency to govern."
The Highwood riding board charged that the Tory party "is bereft of policy, planning, execution, follow-through and communication to the members of the party, and, most importantly, to the citizens of Alberta."
Without a rebirth of grassroots participation, the letter says, "this party can expect no mercy from the electorate on the election day, which is just two short years away."
Yikes! That is tough! Times don't look so good when you have all this discontent and Riding Associations are saying things like that.
The Highwood riding board charged that the Tory party "is bereft of policy, planning, execution, follow-through and communication to the members of the party, and, most importantly, to the citizens of Alberta."
Without a rebirth of grassroots participation, the letter says, "this party can expect no mercy from the electorate on the election day, which is just two short years away."
Yikes! That is tough! Times don't look so good when you have all this discontent and Riding Associations are saying things like that.
RELATED: Doesn't all this kind of remind you of the Federal Liberal Party right now? The divisions and discontentment? Will Mr. Iffy lead the Liberal Party of Canada into the next election?
The PCs only have themselves to blame, for setting up the Leadership race rules the way they did. Ed won on the second round, primarily because he could sell more Party memberships than Morton and Dinning. On top of that, many (like me) who picked Morton first, made Ed their second choice. Huge mistake.
ReplyDelete"Ability to sell memberships" shouldn't even BE on the list of leadership abilities. So the PC Party got what they deserved.
Hopefully, the CPC is paying attention to this whole schmozzle within the Alberta PCs. When the time comes to vote for Harper's replacement, I implore the powers that be at the CPC .... please, please, please DO NOT require the leadership contenders to schlepp around the country, selling memberships.
Restrict the voting to those CPC members who have been members for, say, at least two years. Just ignore the howling from our opponents--they could care less about what's best for the CPC.
CJ,thanks for your input. A gripe I have about that leadership was allowing to sell memberships right up to the second vote. You had Liberals buying memberships thus we have the result that we have right now. My daughter bought one right at the voting station she voted at. That was wrong. There should have been a cut off date for selling memberships well before the leadership vote.
ReplyDeleteSecond, on the second vote, I didn't like the first, second, third choice thing. That's why Ed is our Premier. I did not choose a second and third. I had supported Ted Morton by the way.
I had twice attempted to find out from party headquarters why things were done they way they were. I never got any kind of a reply. That right there turned me off of that party.
WAP is now the way to go!
Junkie,
ReplyDeleteThe CPC leadership vote is (sadly, IMO) not one member, one vote - membership sales are largely irrelevant to leadership contests. Instead, each EDA in the country gets 10 votes, and who that EDA 'votes' for is determined by the membership of that EDA.
Annonymous, are you SURE about those leadership rules ? They would be a step backward from the rules in place when Harper won the leadership.
ReplyDeleteI am going to push for a one-member-one-vote contest. If some regions have more members than other, then so be it. Let the leadership contenders have many free-wheeling debates. Then leave it to the collective wisdom of the 100,000+ COMMITTED CPC members to pick the best leader for the Party.
Alberta must be saved from the socialists in order to save Canada from them also. May the revolution win. (real conservative)
ReplyDelete"Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other."
ReplyDelete-Leon Trotsky