Leadership Selection Results

This post will be a bit of a mishmash of commentary on both the Liberal leadership and Alberta's PC leadership races.

I'll start off with Ed Stelmach's victory. What kind of government Mr. Stelmach is able to forge remains to be seen, but he seems to have won on the backs of the divisions between Ted Morton and that other guy...er Jim Dinning.

Morton had told his people to back Stelmach as "second choice", but I don't think Morton quite realized that his support had already peaked on the first vote a week ago. As I've said before, I think Morton is a highly polarizing, divisive man. His positions are not formed of consensus, but seem to be much more ideological in formation. Although Morton claims he will continue to remain with the party, I suspect that now that power is no longer in the picture we may well see something of an exodus to the "Alberta Alliance" party or some other isolationist party. (There are several in Alberta).

Over at "Project Alberta", we are already seeing early signs of whining from unhappy Ted Morton supporters:

And if the PC establishment wants to reject me, then they’ll get their wish. Ed Stelmach may be a nice guy, but he’s a part of that red establishment. And Harper’s government along with Morton’s campaign has shown conservatives that it’s possible to elect a truly conservative government in the province of Alberta. I’m not going to support a red tory with that prospect hanging before me.

It's hard to figure why, but Ted wasn't able to capture enough of the disenfranchised folks who either voted Alliance in the last election, or stayed home, to take it over the top. Hopefully the next and third giant in this movement will.

Ted didn't lose the race, the thousands of Liberal and NDPers who bought last minute memberships won it for Stelmach.....They voted for another Liberal Stelmach and Dinning.....

For me this is the final key. If Morton does not receive a significant cabinet position I will need to seriously reconsider my support for this party.

The denial is amazing - "Morton didn't lose the race, it was all those nasty liberals buying memberships", or "Morton better damn well get a cabinet seat", etc. Basically these clowns refuse to believe that their man doesn't represent a majority opinion - even within the constituted membership of the party.

Idiots like Link Byfield will be whining quite loudly about how 1/3 of the party are "Ted Morton conservatives(tm) and must be listened to" (read, should be disproportionately powerful), while failing to recognize that just over 70% of the party isn't "Ted Morton conservative(tm)". (How much of the past few months "instant Tory" membership will hang around remains to be seen...) In some respects, I am relieved to note that even within the PC Party of Alberta, the majority of the party are not "Ted Morton Conservatives(tm)" - in spite of the amount of noise they make.

I hope that Ed Stelmach's low key, polite campaign heralds a change in Alberta's political discourse - one which has come to look all too Americanized lately, with people's personal reputations impugned because they stand for office.

Turning briefly to Stephane Dion's victory last night, I'm personally looking forward to seeing what he can do in the House of Commons, and in more policy oriented terms, looking towards growing a new vision for the Liberal party.

The word on the news is that Mr. Dion is very much an active "team player". This is good, because it is a stark contrast to the abusive micromanagement style of Stephen Harper, where he undermines his own ministers on matters of policy by not even notifying them of his decisions. While Harper may appear to be "in control", it's a facade, and we can be quite sure that as time goes by more and more issues are hurtling out of control. Mr. Dion, if he can forge what people perceive to be a collaborative group, will be a much stronger option for leading this Nation than Mr. Harper.

Just for fun, we find out that the CPoC was trying to manipulate the convention somewhat. When playing "dirty tricks", it's generally a good idea not to brag about it - lest you be tarred with the idea that you are simply dishonest.

At least the House of Commons should move out of "holding pattern" now...Mr. Harper - don't change the channel.

[Update 13:51]
I see that the Morton supporters over at "The Politic" are all upset too. For your amusement, here's some of the more bitter comments posted:

The gap between Stelmach(15%)and the two front runners, Dinning(28.5%) and Morton(26%), was over ten thousand votes(10,000) two Saturdays ago.

I don’t think Stelmach should have been on the ticket this Saturaday at all.

...
You are a REAL CONSERVATIVE as opposed to the Liberals who knew they couldn’t be elected under the Liberal banner so they bought PC party memberships years ago.

I’ve had it with politics in this country. When you send Conservatives to Ottawa they become Liberals. When you try to elect them here you get Liberals.

Albertans let down Conservatives all across Canada last night.
...
If Dinning had been eliminated Stelmach still would have won. It was an “Anyone but Morton” fix by putting Stelmach on the ballot.

But what would have happened if Stelmach, who only had 1/3 of the vote Morton or Dinning got each last week, had never been on the ballot?

If would have been a clear choice between Morton and Dinning. And Ralph Klein’s backroom boys didn’t want that.
...
Morton should be welcomed and taken seriously—fully rewarded for his leadership campaign!!!—or he and real conservatives will go elsewhere to win.

The message is: shutting Morton and conservatives out will seriously compromise PC Party fortunes.

My goodness, we're bitter about it. If you only read this, you'd think that the whole thing was a giant conspiracy to make sure Morton lost. Perhaps, just maybe, it's because Morton's views don't represent a plurality of the membership? (In spite of Morton claiming how "mainstream" he is...)
[/Update]