As hundreds of party members meet at their annual general meeting in Calgary this weekend, political observers may have noticed a quiet marketing shift that has seen the Wildrose Alliance drop the word “Alliance” from their logo on their website and url in their press releases (using wildrose.ca instead).
It also puts behind them a bizarre period of their party’s history when a splinter group led by Rob James and Link Byfield left the Paul Hinman led Alberta Alliance to form the Wildrose Party. The two parties merged once again in the months before the 2008 provincial election under the banner of the Wildrose Alliance.
It is an interesting visual shift as that party now led by Danielle Smith prepares for an election, which is expected to be held soon after the Progressive Conservatives choose a new leader in September 2011.
Former Edmonton-Strathcona Conservative candidate Ryan Hastman is joining the Wildrose political staff in an election readiness role. Popular talk radio host Mike Blanchard is seeking the Wildrose nomination in Calgary-Buffalo. Mr. Blanchard had sought the nomination in Calgary-Mackay-Nose Hill but was defeated by Roy Alexander.
The party is also rebuilding in Medicine Hat, where internal fighting forced high-profile candidate Milvia Bauman to step down late last year.
8 replies on “wildrose drops the alliance.”
Ryan Hastman lost. To an NDP. In Alberta.
Is this the best they can do for “candidate training”?
I have to wonder about the future of this party. Alberta is really quickly become a very diverse place, and the Wildrose can only hide its religious supporters for so long. What flies in Calgary won’t necessarily fly in Edmonton, and the vast majority of Albertans are not the upper stratosphere income earners of the Wildrose’s energy base.
I’m quite concerned that infrastructure will take a considerable hit under the wildrose. The PCs have been bad enough deferring development, but going more libertarian is just going to push Alberta further behind (unless your name is Mr(s). Encana Husky McShell).
Interesting. Both the Wildrose Alliance and the
AB Party apparently have their beginnings in basically hostile takeovers of existing parties rather than building their own parties from scratch (laborious, costly, and much easier simply to take over an existing party). Now that both are off on new tracks with different people at the top, the original groups have become pretty much expendable. The Alliance component is probably not that high in numbers anyway and this change will no doubt attract more new members. The positions coming out of the convention re dismantling the Human Rights Commission and repealing the recent transmission/land use bills are certainly going to attract new members. Finally we are getting some solid differences between the PCs and the Wildrose and not simply rhetoric. It should make it easier to attract new wanna-be MLAs as well. Now where does the Wildrose stand on Official Bilingualism as it relates to AB (and it does, big time) and Official Multiculturalism. Who knows, they may even have the courage to take these head on as well.
Yes because official bilingualism is one of the top problems facing ordinary Albertans today. /end snark here
The Wildrose let their moderate mask slip off at this convention. Hopefully the media will make average Albertans aware of the crazy monster that was revealed to be underneath. We can’t afford to have a party this far from centre as either government or even Official Opposition; both scenarios see Alberta’s government policy shifted in a very bad direction.
The party has been using a logo that just says “Wildrose” for a year now:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e7/Wildrose_logo.png
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