Rachel Notley transformed Alberta politics. Looking back at the 2015 election, it’s tempting to diminish her victory and write it off as luck. The Conservatives and Wild Rose were splitting the conservative vote, and the NDP snuck up the middle. It’s true that the combined conservative vote was greater than the NDP vote, but that ignores the remarkable growth in NDP support during that election. In 2012, the Alberta NDP led by Brian Mason won 126,752 votes, or 10% of the popular vote. In 2015, Rachel Notley’s NDP won 604,518 votes, or 41% of the popular vote. That’s more than luck.
Rachel Notley has always had integrity, something her opponents over on the conservative side know nothing about. For that reason alone we were better served by her and the NDP than the "just blame Ottawa" paleoconservatives of the UCP. Including its current iteration. True, her government was less than perfect, however I can accept honest mistakes a whole lot better than the overt, self-serving dishonesty of Jason Kenney and/or the calculating and well-documented duplicity of Danielle Smith.
Either the ABNDP ends up like the BC NDP after their shock win in 1975 or they end up like the current Sask NDP. I don’t think they die once Notley leaves because the NDP in Western Canada has a tendency to outlive their once in a generation leaders(the leaders who give them a taste of power for the first time). The ABNDP will also have the advantage of a solid party structure in the two major cities and other parts of the province which will allow it to survive during smith’s time in power. It will also allow them to choose more moderate leaders more often now. Also any potential challengers to the ABNDP are pretty much dead which will benefit the ABNDP to.
It's extremely unlikely that "the party will crumble and Alberta will revert to its historical pattern of conservative dynasties." First because the organization continues intact, the caucus is still the most diverse and numerous opposition caucus ever, with the senior layers filled with very capable people, with experience in government, and all the leadership candidates are very capable of leading the party and the province. Second, because the conservative party is in crisis. The UCP is a Frankenparty, hastily cobbled together out of the old PCs and the Wildrose by Jason Kenney, with no real agenda other than bailing out some corporate cronies, filled with extremely incompetent people. The exact opposite of the NDP. It will be very hard to continue to pull the wool over people's eyes for prolonged period of time.
I think we had best figure out ways to help candidates who run as leader and the person who is chosen as leader to be successful in the next round. There are excellent MLAs within the NDP group. While I am disappointed that Rachel Notley won’t stay on as leader, she likely made the right choice at this time.
What I remember most vividly from the 2015 election is that going in to the debate I thought Notley was ahead but not absolutely so.
Then, during the leaders' debate, there was a comment/question by Notley about the budget and Jim Prentice replied that it was complicated. At that precise moment I said to my wife that he had just lost the election. It was not simply that he said the issue was complicated - it absolutely was - but the way he said it just absolutely totally everyone read into it a different statement, "There, there little girl, it's complicated so don't worry your pretty little head about it." Totally, absolutely offensive way of speech.
He didn't say it the way that we heard it, not at all, but the way he say that the issue was complicated everyone, I mean just everyone, could read that into the comment. If he had said that the issue was complicated and he would desperately like to get into it more but time didn't allow detailed analysis, however, there were the following issues, a, b, c, etc. and, gee whiz, why don't we have a televised discussion tomorrow night where we can discuss budget issues further, then he probably could have avoided the defeat or at least made a coalition possible.
But, nope, he came across as a male chauvinist pig and people just weren't having that!
Oh fritz! Here is this idea that Rachel Notley ran a 'solid' government. I think the criterion for running an effective government has to be something better than just not being a national embarrassment and harmful to the public good and national stability. I could drop an URL to my own post on the topic but I think you are the one who does not want me to do that.
Too bad. I have things to say that more Albertans need to read. They could just google "adults in charge blog" and search "Alberta syndrome". Alberta needs to do what it once did well; start a completely new left political party. One that is serious about winning office and governing in the publics interest.
Here's my take on things. Rachel Notley was the closest thing we ever had to Peter Lougheed. That is a good thing. What's bad is that decades of fiscal recklessness by the Alberta PCs, since the onset of the 1990s, and leaving our essential services suffering from brutal cuts, and having infrastructure see no maintenance, before an oil price slump in 2014, is being dumped on Rachel Notley and the NDP. The UCP are just a carbon copy of what the Alberta PCs were for so long, and they too are fiscally irresponsible, and also throw billions of dollars away on the worst types of blunders, while making stupid austerity measures, aimed mainly at those who cannot defend themselves, increase costs of the things we need, such as power, do not care about the environment, while padding their friend's pockets. To the UCP, democracy is a farce, because they don't respect it, and think they can circumvent the rules. Take Back Alberta also enables democracy to be disregarded and disrespected. On top of this, there is a fully complacent media, who will never question what the UCP does, regardless of how bad it is. They enable the UCP to keep on doing what they do, regardless of the consequences, and irrespective of who will end up suffering. Danielle Smith is basically like a can, or bottle of pop, that gets shaken. Once it is open, the contents burst out, making a big mess of things. She hasn't learned anything from her political past, as the Wildrose party leader, and has an aura of pomposity, and cockiness, which is most certainly going to lead to her downfall as premier of Alberta. Danielle Smith's mouth goes off before her brain does, and this doesn't help either. Many Albertans clearly don't learn, and they don't care, because they also enable the UCP to do what they do, like they did it with the Alberta PCs for all of those years. We aren't getting any further ahead. The best thing for Alberta is the demise of the UCP.
Rachel Notley has always had integrity, something her opponents over on the conservative side know nothing about. For that reason alone we were better served by her and the NDP than the "just blame Ottawa" paleoconservatives of the UCP. Including its current iteration. True, her government was less than perfect, however I can accept honest mistakes a whole lot better than the overt, self-serving dishonesty of Jason Kenney and/or the calculating and well-documented duplicity of Danielle Smith.
Either the ABNDP ends up like the BC NDP after their shock win in 1975 or they end up like the current Sask NDP. I don’t think they die once Notley leaves because the NDP in Western Canada has a tendency to outlive their once in a generation leaders(the leaders who give them a taste of power for the first time). The ABNDP will also have the advantage of a solid party structure in the two major cities and other parts of the province which will allow it to survive during smith’s time in power. It will also allow them to choose more moderate leaders more often now. Also any potential challengers to the ABNDP are pretty much dead which will benefit the ABNDP to.
It's extremely unlikely that "the party will crumble and Alberta will revert to its historical pattern of conservative dynasties." First because the organization continues intact, the caucus is still the most diverse and numerous opposition caucus ever, with the senior layers filled with very capable people, with experience in government, and all the leadership candidates are very capable of leading the party and the province. Second, because the conservative party is in crisis. The UCP is a Frankenparty, hastily cobbled together out of the old PCs and the Wildrose by Jason Kenney, with no real agenda other than bailing out some corporate cronies, filled with extremely incompetent people. The exact opposite of the NDP. It will be very hard to continue to pull the wool over people's eyes for prolonged period of time.
I think we had best figure out ways to help candidates who run as leader and the person who is chosen as leader to be successful in the next round. There are excellent MLAs within the NDP group. While I am disappointed that Rachel Notley won’t stay on as leader, she likely made the right choice at this time.
Thanks for the insights
What I remember most vividly from the 2015 election is that going in to the debate I thought Notley was ahead but not absolutely so.
Then, during the leaders' debate, there was a comment/question by Notley about the budget and Jim Prentice replied that it was complicated. At that precise moment I said to my wife that he had just lost the election. It was not simply that he said the issue was complicated - it absolutely was - but the way he said it just absolutely totally everyone read into it a different statement, "There, there little girl, it's complicated so don't worry your pretty little head about it." Totally, absolutely offensive way of speech.
He didn't say it the way that we heard it, not at all, but the way he say that the issue was complicated everyone, I mean just everyone, could read that into the comment. If he had said that the issue was complicated and he would desperately like to get into it more but time didn't allow detailed analysis, however, there were the following issues, a, b, c, etc. and, gee whiz, why don't we have a televised discussion tomorrow night where we can discuss budget issues further, then he probably could have avoided the defeat or at least made a coalition possible.
But, nope, he came across as a male chauvinist pig and people just weren't having that!
Good times ahead for political watchers and professors fascinated by beards!
Oh fritz! Here is this idea that Rachel Notley ran a 'solid' government. I think the criterion for running an effective government has to be something better than just not being a national embarrassment and harmful to the public good and national stability. I could drop an URL to my own post on the topic but I think you are the one who does not want me to do that.
Too bad. I have things to say that more Albertans need to read. They could just google "adults in charge blog" and search "Alberta syndrome". Alberta needs to do what it once did well; start a completely new left political party. One that is serious about winning office and governing in the publics interest.
Here's my take on things. Rachel Notley was the closest thing we ever had to Peter Lougheed. That is a good thing. What's bad is that decades of fiscal recklessness by the Alberta PCs, since the onset of the 1990s, and leaving our essential services suffering from brutal cuts, and having infrastructure see no maintenance, before an oil price slump in 2014, is being dumped on Rachel Notley and the NDP. The UCP are just a carbon copy of what the Alberta PCs were for so long, and they too are fiscally irresponsible, and also throw billions of dollars away on the worst types of blunders, while making stupid austerity measures, aimed mainly at those who cannot defend themselves, increase costs of the things we need, such as power, do not care about the environment, while padding their friend's pockets. To the UCP, democracy is a farce, because they don't respect it, and think they can circumvent the rules. Take Back Alberta also enables democracy to be disregarded and disrespected. On top of this, there is a fully complacent media, who will never question what the UCP does, regardless of how bad it is. They enable the UCP to keep on doing what they do, regardless of the consequences, and irrespective of who will end up suffering. Danielle Smith is basically like a can, or bottle of pop, that gets shaken. Once it is open, the contents burst out, making a big mess of things. She hasn't learned anything from her political past, as the Wildrose party leader, and has an aura of pomposity, and cockiness, which is most certainly going to lead to her downfall as premier of Alberta. Danielle Smith's mouth goes off before her brain does, and this doesn't help either. Many Albertans clearly don't learn, and they don't care, because they also enable the UCP to do what they do, like they did it with the Alberta PCs for all of those years. We aren't getting any further ahead. The best thing for Alberta is the demise of the UCP.