daveberta.ca - Alberta Politics and Elections

There’s been some good breakdown of the potential outcomes of next Saturday’s Alberta PC leadership second ballot. As I’ve said before, a lot will depend on how many memberships can be sold this week and how well defeated candidates like Dave Hancock, Lyle Oberg, and Mark Norris can retain the support of supporters and direct them to support Ed Stelmach.

Also, it should be interesting to see if the 36 MLA’s who are supposedly supporting Jim Dinning actually get out and sell PC memberships this week (we’re all looking at you Barry McFarland…).

I wouldn’t be surprised if large portions of Lyle Oberg’s support and Mark Norris’ rural support went to Ted Morton on the second ballot. But, because of the PC membership sales this week it will be fairly difficult to track this.

Ted Morton is definately the anti-establishment candidate in this race. If you’re a Tory and you want things shaken up, I’m pretty sure Ted Morton is your man. Ed Stelmach may have “integrity,” but I still can’t name one thing he did after being a member of the PC Cabinet and Caucus for 13 years. And I think I’ve made my thoughts on Jim Dinning fairly clear in the past.

I’ll have more of my thoughts in the next couple days, but until then I’ll direct you to Duncan’s breakdown on the probabilities of the preferential second ballot.

Also, I was impressed with Green leader Elizabeth May‘s second place good showing of 25% in last night’s London-North Centre by-election. Considering Liberal Glen Pearson was only elected with 34% and Conservative Diane Haskett placed third with 24%, it should be interesting to see how this will effect future Green support across Canada. It doesn’t do anything bad for their legitimacy…

And finally, the Federal Liberals are holding their leadership selection this upcoming weekend. Who will win? Michael Ignatieff? Bob Rae? Gerard Kennedy? I guess we’ll see, but to tell you the truth, other than reading the weekly pdf edition of the Hill Times than arrives in my mailbox weekly, I haven’t been spending any large amount of time paying attention to Federal politics…

UPDATE: Will has some thoughts on Jim Dinning’s speech yesterday…

Edmonton: Windchill -40C

It’s really really cold!

Mark Norris has endorsed Ed Stelmach in the second-ballot of the Alberta PC leadership race.

It seems like the anybody-but-Jim Dinning-and-Ted Morton candidate has materialized in full force.

More insightful commentary to come in the near future.

Ken Chapman has a good breakdown of how well PC MLA’s delivered in support from their ridings for the PC leadership candidate of their choice. Here is part of Ken’s Ed Stelmach breakdown:

The overall score of stars and slackers is about 50/50 for Ed’s Team. The big time performers were Ray Danyluk from Lac La Biche St. Paul who turned out whopping 73% of the total 1730 voters for Ed. Next was Luke Oullette from Innisfail Sylvan Lake who turned out a more than respectable 51% of the total 1726 voting members for Stelmach.

You can check out the first-ballot PC MLA endorsements here.

Looks like Lyle Oberg just held a press conference and endorsed Ed Stelmach.

If I were Jim Dinning, I’d be worried.

The results of the Alberta PC Party’s internal party selection are a bit surprising. A party divided is what is apparent.

In retrospect, I clearly underestimated how much support Jim Dinning would get with 10-years of planning, 36 MLA’s and the Calgary Mafia supporting him, a new hair-do, a pair of contact lens, and the control of many of the internal party mechanisms. Geez, even Paul Martin could pull it off…

Ted Morton clearly performed a little better than I had expected in a way. I knew his support was solid and committed; I just wasn’t sure how large it was and how close he would be to Jim Dinning. The so-con vote showed up. The ghost of Reform is back.

Months ago I was predicting that Ed Stelmach would make second or third place in this race. And then he fell off the radar. Apparently, he must have been busy selling PC Party membership in rural Alberta. As Larry Johnsrude reports, the Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville poll results showed an Ed Stelmach-2,461 to Jim Dinning-144 split in Stelmach’s riding (detailed riding-by-riding results can be found here). But even with Dave Hancock‘s endorsement last night, Ed Stelmach remains “Ed Who?” for many Albertans. Will Ed Stelmach stay on for the second-ballot? Will he make a deal with Ted Morton or Jim Dinning? Is Ed Stelmach the Rick Orman of the race?

Speaking of Dave Hancock’s endorsement of Ed Stelmach and their Northern Alliance, it should be interesting to see if Mark Norris joins this coalition of the non-Jim-and-Ted Club. It may not be too unlikely to see Lyle Oberg endorse Ted Morton in the meantime. Victor Doerksen will probably park his votes with Morton.

But the question lies, how much support does an endorsement actually create? As this is not a delegated leadership race the members voting in this selection are not stuck in a large convention hall or hotel with a world of peer pressure pushing them around. It should be interesting to see how strong the internal campaign mechanisms of each leadership candidate’s campaign are and how much of this structure will stay alive or transfer over to the endorsee.

In the time between now and the Tories second ballot next week, expect to see each of the last three old-white men standing to be promise-making and selling their $5 memberships at every street corner.

Also, while I was at the Edmonton Forum I asked a member of the PC Party Executive Committee what would happen if no candidate got more than 50% + 1 on the second ballot. She didn’t have an answer. This seems like something that should be planned for…

As much as a political geek I am, I find it very concerning at how much main stream media attention the results of this internal party leadership selection are getting – the same, if not more, than an actual legitimate and franchised General Election. Many media folks and blogger-types seem to be getting these two very very different things confused.

The Alberta PC Party leadership selection is not an exercise in democracy. So don’t pretend like it is.

Care ‘o The One Party State…

First Ballot Results Thanks to the Invisible Hand, who is liveblogging the results from Calgary, here are the final totals:

Dinning 29,470
Morton 25,614
Stelmach 14,967
Oberg 11,638
Hancock 7595
Norris 6789
Doerksen 873
McPherson 744
Total: 97,690

Looks like I may have been a little off on my predictions. I’ll be interesting to see the final verified totals tomorrow morning. I’ll promise more analysis then.

Snarky comments, thoughtful observations, and rude remarks welcomed.

UPDATE: Larry Johnsrude has reported that Dave Hancock has endorsed Ed Stelmach in order to form a “Northern Alliance” (not to be confused with the other Northern Alliance). If this is true then I’m not totally shocked by Hancock’s decision to support Ed Stelmach over Jim Dinning as Dinning’s campaign has not exactly been the most gracious gang of frontrunners around the block.

How is this surprising?

Jim Dinning, Ted Morton jump into lead in first-ballot voting for
next Alberta premier

Dean Bennett, Canadian
PressPublished: Saturday, November 25, 2006

CALGARY (CP) – The race to replace Premier Ralph Klein as leader of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Party was shaping up as two-man battle in early vote returns Saturday.

Former Alberta treasurer Jim Dinning and backbencher Ted Morton were within about 800 votes of each other but racing away from Ed Stelmach and Lyle Oberg, who were battling for a distant third by the time 20 per cent of the votes had been counted.

None of the candidates was close to the 50 per cent plus one majority needed for a first-ballot win. If no one receives the 50 per cent, the top three finishers will move on to a second ballot next Saturday that would see voters rank the candidates in order of preference.

Looking forward to seeing the results tomorrow morning…

I had hoped to get this post out yesterday, but in honour of my sitting in a warm room sipping hot coffee and reading the New York Times online as Tories across the province are out in the cold shuttling their members to the Alberta PC leadership polls, here are my thoughts on the race for the leader of the Alberta PC Party on selection day…

1) The weather outside is frightful. The weather should play a huge role in the turnout. It is cold in Edmonton with a wind-chill and similar weather across Alberta.

2) The weather factor should affect the committed v. Tory-come-lately member voter turnouts across Alberta. As I mentioned before, I believe this will play a substantial role between the candidates and their type of supporters. As I’ve stated before, I believe Ted Morton‘s supporters are more committed to show up to the polls than Jim Dinning supporters. That said, Jim Dinning’s supporters may simply just overwhelm those of the other candidates due to sheer numbers.

3) Organization or lack thereof. There were some huge problems with the advanced polls this week leaving candidates like Dave Hancock waiting in line for hours. Gary McPherson blamed Alberta PC Party organizers. Others blamed it on candidate Lyle Oberg‘s busing in hundreds of folks from Edmonton’s ethnic communities. There has already been complaints about lack of organization and unethical acts by various leadership camps during today’s selection vote.

4) Turnout. Because there are no rules regarding when anyone can by a Alberta PC membership and vote (well, you can just show up and pay $5 to vote at the polling station), it is hard to say how many members will actually show up and vote. Though at the beginning of this race Jim Dinning, Ted Morton, and Mark Norris all declared that they would sell around 100,000 memberships, I’d be surprised if there were more than 80,000 people who showed up to vote on the first ballot.

5) Rural v. Urban. This may play a huge role in who gets their support out. I think it’s safe to say that Lyle Oberg, Ed Stelmach, and Ted Morton are drawing a large amount of their support from rural Alberta. Turnout from these supporters will largely depend on road and snow conditions out in the country. Urban voters may have an easier time with shorter distances to travel and municipally plowed roads.

Rural Albertans played a huge role in Ralph Klein’s 1992 PC leadership victory over Nancy Betkowski, so it should be interesting to see if after Klein’s negative infrastructure cuts to rural communities if rural Albertans are inspired to participate in this internal party leadership selection. Interestingly, Jim Dinning was the Chair of Nancy Betkowski’s 1992 PC leadership campaign.

6) What are Alberta PC members looking for in their new leader? If they are looking for the status quo, they will go with the Jim Dinning gang and his 36 MLA caucus support. If they are looking for someone to shake up the way the Tory Government operates, they should probably vote for someone like Ted Morton. If they are looking for someone to lead a completely dysfunctional Tory Government, they should probably vote for someone like Lyle Oberg…

7) To watch… if no candidate takes it on the first ballot it should be interesting to see who drops out and endorses who… only three candidates may make it to the second ballot set for next weekend. Membership sales are allowed to continue between the two ballots.

How bitter will the candidates and their camps be after the first ballot? The ideological so-con v. red tory and establishment v. non-establishment divide in this race has been evident from the beginning and threatens to tear the Tories apart from the inside. Will the Calgary corporate mafia shut out the reform grassroots base? It should be entertaining to watch.

8) My predictions… In placing my predictions, I must say that as mentioned above, it is extremely difficult to predict due to the lack of rules surrounding membership sales, so here is my best shot for predicting the first ballot in the Alberta PC leadership selection…

Jim Dinning – 39%
Ted Morton – 19%
Lyle Oberg – 14%
Mark Norris – 11%
Ed Stelmach – 10%
Dave Hancock – 6%
Gary McPherson – 1%
Victor Doerksen – 1%

This said, a Jim Dinning win on the first-ballot would not surprise me a bit.

Graham Thomson hit it right on the mark.

Leadership candidate Gary McPherson has said those organizing the race couldn’t run a two-car funeral procession. It’s more than a little disconcerting to think they’re in charge of the process to choose our next premier.

Understandably, there were plenty of upset Tories waiting in line on Monday. But none were angrier than those back at the headquarters of the various leadership campaigns who smelled a rat.

They blamed the Lyle Oberg campaign for using the advance poll as a sneaky way of busing in hundreds of supporters to the convenient downtown location rather than having them make their own way to the regular polls scattered throughout the city on Saturday. Those who voted in the advance poll had to sign a statement declaring they couldn’t make it to the Saturday poll.

The other campaigns muttered darkly about Oberg abusing the rules.

Rules? What rules? When it comes to rules, the Tory leadership race is the Wild West without the sheriff. There are almost no rules and even less policing.

What Oberg did was simply get out his vote — and that’s what this race is all about: selling memberships and getting those members out to cast a ballot. Oberg, dismissed on more than one occasion by critics and pundits, is once again proving himself more resilient than Methuselah.

There are other complaints popping up about dastardly deeds in the desperate last days of the race. Various leadership camps are muttering about how other campaigns are buying up $5 membership cards and giving them away free to people, whether those people asked for them or not.

However, there’s no rule against buying memberships and giving them away.

If Tories are upset by too few rules or no enforcement of those rules they have no-one to blame but their own party. This is a Tory-run, internally-organized party affair.

This is not a general election. This is not an exercise in democracy, even though it mimics the process.

Aliens from Mars or from Tory party headquarters might argue it’s democracy. After all, it is a one-person, one-vote system where the ballots are cast in polling stations and then counted to determine the winning candidate. This race also has all-candidate forums and campaign buttons and plenty of media coverage.

But this is not democracy in action.

If it is democracy, it’s the type practiced in the old Soviet Union where people were allowed to vote but all the candidates came from the Communist Party.

In this Tory leadership-race version of democracy, the only candidates are Conservatives. …

Let the Tories have their vote.

Then let Albertans as a whole pass judgement on the Tories’ choice — in the next general election, when we exercise our democratic right.

A bunch o’ stuff…

– Jim Dimming has set up a new campaign website… wait a minute… (props to DH for the linkage)

– Following Ted Morton’s new hit single, Jim Dimm…nning has released a new single. Which I have to say will give Kevin Federline a run for his money… it’s really that awful… and 5 minutes long… shouldn’t these guys be busy selling memberships? Here’s c-lo thoughts…

This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard, the maraca is useless, the song lacks even folksy charm, let alone any passion and the lyrics are terrible… Please tell me this is not on his website. This is reason alone to not vote for him.

90 seconds in I’m thinking “when will this end”. I am now approaching the 4:00 minute mark…. who wrote this torture!!!!!

And they wonder why homicides are going up!!!!!

If this goes over five minutes… I swear to god….

Praise the heavens!!!! It ended… just before the 5:00 minute mark coincidentally….

– I attended a Women in Politics seminar at the U of A tonight. Speakers included MLA’s Laurie Blakeman and Weslyn Mather and former MP Anne McLellan.

– Senator Hillary Clinton’s Election Campaign spent $31 Million – including $13,000 in flowers and $27,000 in valet parking…

– and finally, I’ll have my uber-Alberta PC leadership race predictions up on Friday… what will they be? Tune in on Friday…

Though this is a bit of fun gimick on the part of Ted Morton Alberta PC leadership campaign, I think a little part of me died when I first heard it…

On another note, I thought this was quite interesting…

In 2000, tens of thousands of Hanoi’s residents poured into the streets to witness the visit of the first American head of state since the end of the Vietnam War. Mr. Clinton toured the thousand-year-old Temple of Literature, grabbed lunch at a noodle shop, argued with Communist Party leaders about American imperialism and sifted the earth for the remains of a missing airman.

On Saturday, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, conceded that the president had not come into direct contact with ordinary Vietnamese, but said that they connected anyway.

“If you’d been part of the president’s motorcade as we’ve shuttled back and forth,” he said, reporters would have seen that “the president has been doing a lot of waving and getting a lot of waving and smiles.”

He continued: “I think he’s gotten a real sense of the warmth of the Vietnamese people and their willingness to put a very difficult period for both the United States and Vietnam behind them.”

Yep. Nothing like the warmth of an armoured Presidential motorcade…

Edmonton Manning MLA Dan Backs is no longer a member of the Official Opposition Alberta Liberal Caucus.

I’ve heard various shifty rumours about his involvement in the Tory leadership race in the past couple months and Backs has always been an odd fellow, so I’m not sure I’m totally surprised by this action.

In making the announcement, Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft said, “This has been a difficult decision. Dan has made valuable contributions.”

“However, teamwork is key to being an effective Opposition, and I believe that this decision will allow our Caucus team to function better.”

I’ll see what I can do about offering more comment later today…

UPDATE: Does anyone find it interesting that this post generated a lot more discussion and comments than my previous post about Peter Lougheed endorsing Jim Dinning?

Peter Lougheed’s endorsement of Tory Dauphin Jim Dinning means something. Right?

Questions:
– Will Peter Lougheed’s endorsement effect the PC leadership race in any big way?
– Does this put Dinning over the top on the first ballot?
– What does this do to Red Tory candidate Dave Hancock?
– What happens if Dinning takes it on the first ballot?
– Will this increase the low interest in the leadership selection?

More comments on this in the near future – along with my predictions on the Alberta PC leadership selection, the after-effects, a new challenge for the Alberta Liberals, NDP, and Alliance, and what happens next in Alberta’s political scene…