Tag Archives: Alberta Party

Meet Nate Pike from Calgary Alberta

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I support independent journalism along with citizen journalists. I should. I am currently making a living in that industry.

I think people’s efforts should flourish or wither based on the quality and principles of their work.

Nate Pike is a lowly person who participates in trash journalism based on posting the personal information of others and trying to expose them to ridicule or humiliation.

I don’t think Nate should be sued, swarmed online, or canceled. I just want to ensure that his actions are documented online in perpetuity for those who may be searching his name for whatever reason.

The recent action taken by Pike was to post the profile from a dating site of a person who had been out of politics for years. There was nothing unusual in the profile. Just a person who was seeking to meet somebody. Nate thought it was a good idea to post an image of the profile on his little news account called “The Breakdown” and essentially tried to belittle the person in a snickering way.

Even Pike’s own followers were repulsed by the pointless invasion of somebody’s personal space and privacy online. They called for Nate to pull down this puerile, pointless posting.

This is where Nate Pike’s true nature shines through. He refused then and refuses now to delete the posting. As of this posting, it still remains up.

We all make mistakes. Many of us have posted impulsive things online that we shouldn’t have. The mark of a decent person though is the ability to realize an error and work to correct it. Deleting his disgusting post would have been the first and least of the efforts Nate Pike could have made to right this wrong. Apologizing would have been even better. Instead, Nate Pike wants the posting to remain on the internet forever. Just as this little posting about Nate will.

So keep this in mind if you are researching Nate Pike from Calgary Alberta who has run for the Alberta Party in a provincial election and for Ward 3 in a municipal election. He is a petty little man who gets off on trying to humiliate others who have done nothing to him.

Bear that in mind as well if looking into his little venture into citizen’s journalism with @thebreakdownAB where he posts personal information on others while begging for donations with a Patreon account. There is little of credibility to be found in his writings.

Hope you grow up one day Nate. Until then, enjoy this little bit of the attention you so clearly were seeking.

The Alberta Party. They’re just not ready.

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It is hardly news to any that Jacob the Hurricane Huffman is miles ahead of the pack in the race to lead the Alberta Party. Jacob exploded on to the scene and has finally generated that buzz and excitement that Alberta Party claims to have wanted to generate.

New memberships have been sold and people are committing to signing Huffman’s nomination papers to ensure he is all set to go.

Fundraising has been brisk as people scramble to support this young visionary on his quest to make the Alberta Party great again. 

Alas, despite all of this hard work and preparation by Huffman it appears that the powers that be still are not actually ready to hold a leadership race as can be seen in the email below.

How is it that a party that won’t even run a candidate in a by-election can’t seem to find the time in putting together an application form with nearly a month to work on it?

With a veteran Redford organizer such as Susan Elliott at the helm, it is astounding that they can’t somehow accomplish even this simple little task.

What is keeping the Alberta Party so busy? No campaign in the by-election and no rush of candidates aside from Hurricane Huffman’s fantastic run. Can they not cobble together a basic application form? Apparently not.

Just tossing a guess out there that perhaps Team Redford should have thought a little harder before pressuring Greg Clark out of the leadership.

Thankfully, Jacob Huffman is undeterred and is marching right along with his campaign.

Get behind Jacob today! With him at the helm of the Alberta Party, there is no limit on what can be done! 

 

Meet Alberta’s next Premier!

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There is just no doubt about it. Jacob Huffman has taken the Alberta Party leadership race by storm and so far looks utterly unstoppable.

Huffman, also known as “The Hurricane” or “The Lemmy Kilmister” of Alberta politics has taken a commanding lead over all other candidates with the bold release of his platform today.

Huffman pays homage to the mushy middle nature of the Alberta Party with his brilliant insertion of the term “possible” right in the title of his platform release.

While playing to the roots of the party about nothing, Huffman also brilliantly dedicates his unabashed support for bringing about the return to power for past supporters of Alison Redford thus leaving his competitors who have beaten around this bush in the political dust.

Along with some fantastic plans for economic stimulus while still recognizing that math is indeed hard, Huffman has fleshed out a fantastic, possible plan for the Alberta Party.

The addition of a puppy picture has ensured that this will indeed be one of the strongest and most popular political platforms that Albertans have ever seen.

All polls conducted since Huffman’s meteoric arrival in the hotly contested race for the leadership of the Alberta Party have clearly indicated that his lead is so strong that his competitors can’t even been seen (or heard or named for that matter).

With scant months remaining in this race, Huffman has set the bar high for all aspiring for that coveted throne enjoyed by the Leader of the Alberta Party (though that throne was recently something of an ejection seat).

Huffman has told me: “I plan on running a fair, and solid campaign, that I’m in it to win it, and will hold people accountable to democratic principals.”

I am quite excited to have purchased a membership in the Alberta Party in anticipation of voting for this visionary young man.

Memberships can be purchased here. 

We are seeing history in the making today.

A top politician indeed.

 

What if you held a race and nobody showed up?

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The bizarre saga of the hapless Alberta Party continues.

It has been eighteen days since Greg Clark was pushed out as leader of the Alberta Party due to a sudden influx of ambitious but unprincipled Progressive Conservative party members from the Redford era. Having gotten their hands on a fresh new party to play with, one would have thought that the tall foreheads behind this putsch would have had the foresight to ensure that their prospective leadership candidates for the upcoming race were solid. Alas, it appears that common sense was lost in their zeal.

Now the odd little party is finishing a legislative session leaderless, can’t even find the means to run a candidate in the Calgary Lougheed by-election and is losing what little credibility it had remaining as the days in what is going to be a very short leadership race tick by with not even a sign of a candidate vying for the position.

Surely the Redford Refugees had a person or persons in mind for the role when they kicked Greg Clark to the curb so ignominiously not so long ago. Party insiders have described the internal workings of the Alberta Party since the takeover as “a train wreck”.

I am guessing that the prospective candidates took a look at the moribund little party with no money in the bank that & now wracked with internal discord due to the weaselry involved in punting Greg Clark and they wisely headed the hell to the hills.

In any real leadership contest, prospective candidates begin voicing their public interest as soon as a vacancy presents itself. One can’t start too early in order to raise funds, build a team and sell memberships in order to win the race. Even tire kickers will at least air some interest into the public to gauge potential support for a run.

The silence regarding the leadership vacancy with the Alberta Party is truly deafening. They haven’t even drawn fringe crackpots to the race yet. This is truly a singular situation in politics.

The Christmas season is looming. That is a campaign dead zone from about December 15 until into the new year. That leaves about seven viable campaign weeks remaining if a candidate should throw their hat into the ring today.

I expect that they will scrape together a candidate or two by the time a deadline is reached. Hardly a position of strength when they have to work so hard to find one or two people who even want the job.

While the Alberta Party is clearly no threat on the electoral scene, this unique situation still makes it an interesting and unfolding story to behold. The machinations of the remnants of the once mighty Redford machine while as unprincipled as ever clearly don’t maintain the strategic wisdom of the past nor any real fiscal backing. The Alberta Party had just doubled its caucus and was actually gaining a bit of momentum. They then let their legs get cut out from under them by some homeless Progressive Conservatives who clearly knew so much better than the stalwarts running the party.

Perhaps the old Alberta Party guard will rally under Greg Clark and he can win back the role that he was pushed from. That looks like the best hope for the party right now. Then maybe they will have a hope of retaining a single seat in the next general election. Otherwise they are looking pretty dead.

Rejuvenated Alberta Party already dead in the water.

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The first strategically questionable move made by the Redford era management who have taken over the Alberta Party was to push out the personable leader Greg Clark and to trigger a sudden leadership race. The next move was the choice to refuse to run a candidate in the Calgary Lougheed by-election.

The flaccid rationale for forcing a leadership race was that they needed it to create buzz and sell memberships. Isn’t that exactly what running a candidate in a high profile by-election would do too? The reality is that those who took over simply want Clark out. While leadership races do indeed create buzz and sell memberships, they are terribly expensive for the party to run and party donations dry up for months while leadership candidates tap traditional party donors for their own campaigns. Somebody like Stephen Carter already knows this of course.

By-elections tend to be good for the party. Running a campaign means regular media opportunities and ongoing activity while galvanizing volunteers and members as they participate on the ground. Profile is raised and memberships are sold as people knock on doors throughout the community. Valuable campaign experience for party members is gained in these events. Even without a win there is a clear net-benefit for a party in running in by-elections.

In an absurd release, the Alberta Party has said that they will not run in the Calgary Lougheed by-election because it is “a foregone conclusion”. 

With the logic demonstrated in this choice to deny voters a chance to vote for them in Calgary Lougheed, it only stands to reason that the Alberta Party will only run a candidate in Calgary Elbow in the general election. The party has difficulty passing the 5% support range in pretty much every other constituency in Alberta.

It is somewhat ironic that while the Alberta Party has been pushing the theme of being “A party for everyone” when that everyone apparently does not include the electors in Calgary Lougheed.

In what universe does a party only run candidates when they know they will have 100% chance of winning? The only parties that could possibly take such a bizarre stance are those that already enjoy some pretty broad popular support throughout the province. The Alberta Party certainly doesn’t enjoy that status at this time (nor will they as long as they are too callow to contest elections).

For political wonks like myself, it will be interesting to watch the strange actions of this party that is now built on a mound of sour grapes. The whole raison d’être of a political party is to run candidates in an election. I guess until the Alberta Party finds it in itself to do so, it will simply be a social club where they will reminisce about the good old days under the Redford Regime before she fell in disgrace.

So far no leadership candidates have burst on to the scene vying for the leadership of the Alberta Party. Not too shocking I guess when they so openly display electoral impotence right out of the gate.  I expect that Team Redford already has somebody they intend to anoint in the role that they forced Greg Clark to vacate last week. One has to wonder if the race will have more than one candidate running.

While the party constantly demands to be taken seriously, they seem to go out of their way to ensure that people can’t take it seriously. Greg Clark just said last weekend that he anticipates the Alberta Party will win the 2019 general election. Rather bold statement to make when they are too weak to even run a single candidate in a by-election.

It is sort of sad to watch. While never managing to set the electoral world on fire, the Alberta Party held a somewhat unique niche in our provincial list of parties. Now they seem to be determined to become little more than a footnote.

The Alberta Party coup.

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If you really believe the spin that Greg Clark willingly stepped aside from the leadership of the Alberta Party in order to help create buzz for the party, I have a bridge to sell you.

Let’s look at the facts in the matter.

With the polarization of provincial politics in Alberta, the Alberta Party may very well have found their opportunity to cut a niche for themselves on the provincial scene. Despite years of hard work, they have languished in the realm of 5% support and have never been able to quite catch the eye of Albertans. With the NDP using all of the fiscal acumen of Venezuela and with the UCP jumping head first into a social issue quagmire in Bill 24, the timing is perfect for the Alberta Party to jump into the scene and round up the people who find themselves frustrated with both the NDP and UCP. In light of this Clark decides now is a good time to resign and leave the Alberta Party leaderless for months? Bullshit.

The Alberta Party is scheduled to hold its annual general meeting in Red Deer on November 18. In something of an irony, the theme of the AGM is “A party for all of us”. I am saying this is ironic because the AGM has apparently sold out and will not accept any new attendees. Word is that the number is 396 and that was after expanding their venue once. With people paying $99 each and with such demand, it is very well possible though admittedly challenging to seek a larger venue even if a deposit is lost. If the true goal is grassroots democracy even a gymnasium will do. While VP policy of the Wildrose Party I organized an AGM at the Bearspaw Community center. It was a nightmare but with a lot of volunteer help we pulled it off. Somehow though, it is impossible to hold an AGM for the Alberta Party with more than a few hundred people.

This AGM will be important as a very important change is being proposed to the constitution of the party. 

There is a proposal to empower the provincial board with a 75% majority of attendees in a meeting to unilaterally force a leadership vote. This is a huge amount of power to bestow on a provincial board where they could bypass caucus and the membership at large in order to toss out a leader. Why the sudden need to bring about this change?

Another interesting part with this AGM is that half of the provincial board positions are up for election. These are 12 spots and there are 35 people vying for them.

With this sudden need to change the constitution coupled with this unprecedented surge of members who registered for an AGM, it simply reeks of an organized takeover.

Less than a year ago, the Alberta Party had less than 400 members in total according to their financials. Now they have more than 400 who want to pay $99 and go to Red Deer to attend an AGM? Astounding indeed.

The tiny membership base made the Alberta Party ripe for a takeover. While it still is no small task to gather a few hundred dedicated folks, it certainly is doable. Hell, Jason Kenney can pull that many to a simple town hall meeting. With the combined effort of politically homeless Redford era PCs working under a PAC such as Alberta Together, such a coup isn’t all that tough to pull off.

The influx of new and experienced faces must have looked great to the original Alberta Party organizers initially. Alas, the Alberta Party has always been the party of nice guys and they really weren’t prepared to handle the way the old PC organizers do things. They don’t pull punches and they don’t play nice. It wasn’t long before the party was dominated.

While bright and personable, Greg Clark was spinning his wheels provincially. The Mr. Rogers approach while appreciated, tends to leave one sitting on the sidelines as pressing issues come and go. The Redford refugees could not abide by that approach any longer. One of the most immediately evident signs of the new blood has been in the attitude of party communications as can be seen below.

While I am not all opposed to rough play in political communications, it sure is a change in tone from the party.

As a side note, I am not sure if the Alberta Party really wants to get into labeling other parties based on the actions of lone candidates. We would be forced to keep bringing up how the Alberta Party had not one but two different fellows who were charged as pedophiles run for them. One of them even ran in their last leadership race. They were Troy Millington and Terry Lo . 

Despite his best efforts, Greg Clark simply did not fit the mold for what the old Redford gang wanted to see. Clark is a nice guy, but he is no fool. Clark resigned rather than being forced out when he could see the writing on the wall. Being nice, he took one for the team and continues to do so.

Anybody in politics knows that when you want to release something bad, you do it on a Friday afternoon in hopes that it gets forgotten and lost from the news cycle over the weekend. If it is something really bad, you do it on the Friday before a long weekend. You can rest assured, if Clark was pumped and happy about his resignation and looked at it as a great rejuvenating move for his party he would not have meekly put it out there on a Facebook post on the Friday afternoon before Remembrance Day.

Clearly the new team taking the reins of the Alberta Party has a person or two in mind for the coming leadership. We likely will see hints at the AGM next week if not open campaigning already. The proposed campaign period is not terribly long by leadership standards. If they really wanted to build the party through a leadership race, they would have a long campaign period where they would solicit a large number of candidates. This is rushed as they don’t want to actually compete something.

Its too bad that the AGM is so full to the rafters. I would have been happy to spend the fee just to attend and watch the fireworks from the floor.

A sad end for a party that tried to do things the nice way.

 

The new face of the Redford Progressives

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Did you really think that the old operators who ran the Redford Progressive Conservative Party into the ground were going to sit on their hands forever? Of course not.

The likes of Thomas Lukaszuk won’t be forever satisfied just beaking from the political sidelines as he has been doing for the last couple years.

Stephen Carter has been homeless as a partisan operator since Sandra Jansen decided that a leadership run for the PCs was simply too tough to manage and subsequently fled to the NDP to finish out her final term in politics. You know he has been chomping on the bit for a new party project.

To their credit, Troy Wason and Katherine O’neill waited until the end of the last PC leadership race before heading for the political hinterland.

The old Redford guard naturally found themselves drawn to the only partisan bridge that they hadn’t burned yet with the Alberta Party. They needed a new home and with its mushy mix of self proclaimed “centrist” principles, the party was ready to be molded into whatever a person in control wanted to make it into.

It really wasn’t hard to dominate the Alberta Party. Despite their having a seat and having made a relatively decent splash for their size, their membership was tiny along with their management team. If the financials are to be believed, the Alberta Party had less than 400 members at the end of 2016. Perhaps more if some had purchased multi-year memberships in prior years but there really was not much of a base. The strength of the party executive is always a reflection of the member base.

A handful of determined, experienced operatives suddenly entered the Alberta Party scene and they brought all of the principles that they used to practice within the Redford Regime with them. The small, well meaning and idealistic group who ran the Alberta Party never had a chance.

The Redford refugees faced one obstacle however. The one shining point of strength within the Alberta Party was its congenial and bright leader, Greg Clark. While Clark made great inroads in his own constituency, he simply couldn’t break out from his niche and the Alberta Party remained in its moribund state of low poll numbers, funds and membership levels.

According to Don Braid with the Calgary Herald, Alberta Party executive meetings were held where the discussion point was on how to change the rules in order to force a leadership race. As pressure mounted, Greg Clark resigned as leader rather than finding himself forced out of his role.

Nice guys do finish last.

Ever the team player, Greg Clark refuses to lob bombs back at the party though he surely must be feeling pretty used. Clark even kindly did his resignation on a Friday afternoon in hopes of keeping it out of the larger news cycle. While Clark and others are trying to claim he is doing this to create buzz for the party, the timing puts lie to this. It would have been a Monday morning release in that case and would be much more than a quick resignation.

Surely Team Redford has a candidate or two in mind to lead the new incarnation of their old PC  party. These kind of backroom operatives won’t open a party void without a plan to fill it. It will be interesting to see who pops out of the woodwork in the pending Alberta Party AGM. It will be even more interesting to see who is backing the aspiring leaders.

Its ironic that Kenney is so often accused of wanting to turn the provincial clock back when we see such an organized movement trying to bring about the return of the disgraced Redford Regime.

A sad end for a party and its leader that tried so hard to do politics the nice way.

The Alberta Party. New & refreshing? Nope. Same old crap.

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Well, on October 4th I predicted that Karen McPherson would be running across the floor to join the Alberta Party in a desperate gambit to save her political skin. 

I am surprised that she crossed so soon though. This makes Greg Clark look like a fool at best, or an outright liar at worst.

Greg Clark has been pitching for years that the Alberta Party is something fresh. He said that they won’t play like the old backroom boys did. Clark implied that they would grow organically rather than through opportunistic floor crossings.

Well it looks like Clark was feeding everybody a line.

Don’t just take my word for it though. Listen to Greg Clark in his own words.

The video is only a minute long and he gets right to the point.

Yes. According to Clark not so long ago, crossings would only be proper if done with open and public consultations with constituents. The was to happen before a crossing happens rather than after. This is pretty clear as Greg Clark said that constituents should be able to say if they support the crossing or not. Rather pointless to ask after the fact isn’t it?

So yes, Greg Clark has determined that a backbencher who was happily sitting with a socialist party less than a month ago is such a perfect fit with his Alberta Party that he did a 100% flip/flop on his own promise and brought her in with no public consultation whatsoever.

I understand that Greg Clark was feeling insecure in going into the next legislative session with the smallest caucus in the house. While this does make Clark’s caucus twice the size of David Khan’s caucus, it is still tiny caucus. Was this caucus growth worth the cost of Clark’s credibility? Time will tell.

We can pretty much toss out all these cute little informational videos that Greg Clark made about the Alberta Party now. We know that he will toss those promises out in a heartbeat if opportunity presents itself.

Rather sad. He seemed like one of the more principled ones in the legislature.

Alberta Party caucus will be growing soon.

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Today some unexpected news hit Alberta.

NDP MLA Karen Mcpherson has suddenly announced that she will be leaving the NDP and will be sitting as an independent.

I am going to do some speculation that Mcpherson along with a few others will be joining Greg Clark and the Alberta Party caucus within a year.

The Alberta Party has been working the Alberta electoral scene for years but really has not been able to make much progress aside from some concentrated support in Calgary Elbow. They have been standing for nothing by trying to stand for everything by constantly claiming to stand for the “center” and it really hasn’t gotten them anywhere.

A wise move by the Alberta Party right now would be to solicit and gain as many sitting MLAs as possible in hopes of gaining some prominence before the next general election in Alberta.

While a collection of discontented back bench MLAs is not exactly an ideal caucus, it would bring a great deal more exposure and resources into the nascent movement. Every MLA brings more research budget, more question period time and more of their own following into a party that can’t electorally break double digits outside of Calgary Elbow.

To directly cross the floor into a party without a cool down period is often very heavily frowned upon. It smacks of opportunism or sour grapes and those types of floor crossers are often not elected again.

If a floor crosser wants to avoid the fate of looking self-serving, what they will do is sit for at least one legislative session as an independent. They will then claim to have consulted with their constituents and will claim that their constituents want them to sit with <insert party here>.

Mcpherson’s comments are very telling in her posting. 

In two sentences one can see how she is already positioning herself for a jump to the Alberta Party down the road:

We are missing the middle where we have more in common with each other than we are different.

In other words, already using the ad nauseam Alberta Party claim of being centrist.

I’ll be taking time to talk with my constituents about the way forward; I have the utmost respect and concern for them and I want to hear their views on the best way forward.

As expected, laying the ground work to be able to claim that her future move to the Alberta Party will be at the orders of her constituents.

Since announcing his departure from the UCP caucus, failed leadership candidate Richard Starke has been very active in attending constituency events in Vermilion-Lloydminster and documenting those actions on his facebook page.

There is utterly nothing wrong with that. This is what an MLA should be doing whether independent or with a party.

This activity is not the activity of a man who doesn’t plan to run again. Again, nothing wrong with that.

Starke is no fool by any means. He knows that winning a seat as an independent in a general election is next to impossible. One has to conclude then that he is likely  working the ground with future re-election in mind under a new party banner.  That banner will be the Alberta Party.

Rick Fraser recently left the UCP caucus to sit as an independent. He implied that the party had drifted too far from the center as he perceived it under Alison Redford.

Fraser expressly did not rule out joining another party down the road and a quote from his resignation rings rather familiar:

I will take this time to speak with my constituents before I make any further decisions

Why do I get the feeling that Mr. Fraser’s constituents will tell him to join the Alberta Party in a few months?

I suspect that Greg Clark will be working like a busy little bee in this coming legislative session. All of the MLAs will be in the same city and many lunch meetings can be arranged where terms of joining can be discussed.

Outside of Edmonton, most NDP MLAs are pretty well aware that their chances of re-election are pretty slim. The Notley government is an accidental government and with a united conservative alternative on the ballot it is looking pretty clear that the Albertan electorate will be rectifying that error in the next general election.

Calgary NDP MLAs now face the prospect of going down with the electoral ship or perhaps extending their term by jumping in with the rebranded Liberals with the Alberta Party. An opposition seat could be considered better than no seat at all. The Alberta Party is surely working hard to remind these back bench MLAs that there may be an option for them.

Some MLAs simply aren’t all that sharp and will need to cling to some sort of upwardly mobile party in hopes of maintaining their seats. They rode the wave to get a seat in the first place but don’t really have the strength to win it again without some strong party support from a party on its way up. Will these MLAs jump ship?

Where will the weak go?

We know that opportunists such as Sandra Jansen will do damn near anything to retain a spot in the legislature. I think perhaps even the Alberta Party isn’t ready to take on her vitriolic presence but you never know.

Things change fast in politics. I could indeed be barking up the wrong tree here but I strongly suspect that there is an organized move being made by the Alberta Party to try and build a caucus of floor crossers within the next year.

They can’t act too soon or it undercuts the narrative MLAs need to send out that they consulted their constituents. This fall session will provide an opportunity to organize and prepare for an announcement where a number of MLAs join at once in order to make the biggest splash possible when they change their party status.

It is getting clear that the NDP will not be forming the next government in Alberta and MLAs need to start thinking now if they plan to remain in the legislature in the next term. An election may be less than a year and a half away and setting up within a new party is a lot of work. I expect my speculation will be proven true or proven as pure fantasy within six months or so.

The sad history of liberals in Alberta.

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It is hardly a secret that Alberta is not a liberal friendly province. Alberta has been and remains a frontier for the ambitious and independent.  Agriculture drew courageous settlers in the late 1800s. Oil drew more in the early 1900s and high tech energy related jobs still draw people from all over the world today.

To relocate into a new environment and take a gamble on a new life takes courage. To endure and remain until you have established yourself takes dedication. In other words, since the beginning of confederation Alberta has drawn strong, independent minded people who don’t want or need big government to get in their way. To put it another way, Alberta has never really been a strong draw for liberals.

This can be seen quite clearly as the Liberal Party has languished for over a century in Alberta as a party yet cant form government.

In 1905 Alberta joined confederation and Liberal Alexander Rutherford was appointed as our first premier. Rutherford called an election later that year and established himself an elected mandate. Not too difficult to do when no opposition party system had been created or established yet. It took 12 years before Albertans organized and tossed the Liberal Party of Alberta to the electoral roadside for what has now been a century.

Had there not been a Liberal government in Ottawa in 1905, I suspect that we never would have seen a Liberal party in power in Alberta.

While the Liberals have run in 25 general elections since 1917, they have never come close to winning power in Alberta. Laurence Decore came somewhat close in 1993 by running on a platform more conservative than the Progressive Conservatives. The populist wave led by Ralph Klein beat back that effort and today despite burning through half a dozen new leaders the Liberals are as deep in the electoral toilet as ever in Alberta.

What is a dedicated liberal sort of person to do in such a situation?

Any realistic liberal (there are a few out there) knows that they will never form government under the Liberal Party banner so they need to seek other alternatives.

A liberal can doggedly keep trying under the party banner as they pursue another century in opposition.

A liberal can simply give up and go federal.

A liberal can go municipal where party allegiance isn’t always evident. That way they can campaign conservative and then govern as a liberal upon election while depending on electoral apathy in order to maintain their job.

A liberal can sneak into a conservative party and hope to turn it liberal.

To be fair though, Sanda Jansen is more of a simple opportunist than a liberal. Jansen would have been begging to join the Wildrose Party had they won the general election. Jansen only cares about residing in a government seat. The party means nothing to her.

The strategy of infiltrating and controlling the Progressive Conservative Party was a successful one for a time. From the later years of Klein’s leadership to the party’s electoral catastrophe in 2015 it was evident that the party was leaning far more to the “progressive” side and drifting away from the conservative side as liberal style entitlement scandals erupted and deficit budgets became common again.

The liberal transformation of the PCs led to the development of the Wildrose Party as an increasing number of conservatives gave up on the PC party.

Unfortunately, due to the now legendary act of treachery led by Danielle Smith and Jim Prentice, the electorate became so horrified and disgusted by both parties that they accidentally elected the Notley NDP.

Now, while the NDP “cure” is turning out to be worse than the disease, we are at least seeing some good long term outcomes here.

The liberals within the Progressive Conservative Party were by nature opportunists. Many of them jumped ship shortly after the party lost power. They had no interest in serving as an opposition party. Other liberals hung on in hopes of turning the shell of the party into a re-branded Liberal Party. Those hopes were dashed as Jason Kenney engaged conservative grassroots voters and swept into the leadership last spring.

The upside I am looking at is that the liberal element has been very effectively flushed from the PC party making the ability of creating a unified conservative party viable.

Now where do all these homeless liberals go?

Fear not. They have taken a page from the 1937 Liberal playbook when they tried to come into power under the Independent Citizen’s Association. You see, Liberals realized that they couldn’t win under their party banner so they tried to hide under a banner that stood for nothing. They banked on the electorate being so tired of openly partisan politics that they would latch on to a party that claimed to shun partisanship through being a coalition of independents thus non-partisan than ever. This coalition failed dismally and the first stealth Liberal attempt ended after the 1940 election when the coalition fell apart. If a party wont openly stand for something, they simply cant concentrate support.

Undaunted however, disaffected Liberals are confident that they can pull this off through the Alberta Party.

The Alberta Party has been around in a few incarnations since the 1980s.  In 2010 a group of liberals took over the small party and in hopes of creating the stealth liberal party they desired. Ever avoiding a solid policy stance on anything, the Alberta Party held a painfully long process that hey coined “the big listen”. The logic was that if they claimed to be always listening to Albertans that they would somehow gain broad support. In maintaining this party that wasn’t a party approach, the Alberta Party took the province by storm in the 2012 general election with a solid 1.33% of the vote.

Undaunted, they carried on. They replaced the term listen with “center”. They follow a simplistic belief that the majority of people are in this mushy world of being in the center and that they surly will engage this giant yet sleeping majority and get a firm center (liberal) government in Alberta. Fiercely battling in the 2015 general election the Alberta Party garnered a staggering 2.28% of the vote. Apparently the center was sleeping that day.

Interestingly though, some experienced liberal operatives will be moving into the Alberta Party this time now that they have lost their Progressive Conservative home. A few champagne socialists will likely pony up some contributions to the next campaign as well.

Will the rallying cry of “centrists!” lead to the first Liberal government in Alberta in over 100 years? I sincerely doubt it.

All the same, it is nothing if not interesting to see a tenacious group of people working generation after generation to sell a product that simply does not appeal to the majority and through so many ways.

We are in quite a period of political flux in Alberta right now to say the least. It will be interesting to see where all the chips land in the next couple years and where liberals will go after the Alberta Party loses another general election through running on nothing.