If Stelmach Agrees To Sign Off Crutcher...

He will be admitting to his organization the hostility of Craig Chandler.

Consider the following. On the Project Alberta thread talking about his "sympathy dinner", we find Mr. Chandler posting the following:

All we are waiting for is some indication that his papers would be signed if he won, just some indication. Even if informal, but we shall see.

Please note, Craig is talking "we" here, implying strongly the connections between himself and Mr. Crutcher. (Which further reinforces my suspicion that Crutcher's declaration that he will run for the nomination is essentially a "sock-puppet" maneuver on the part of Chandler and his allies)

Then we find the following posted by Chandler on Project Alberta:

I need as much Info on the PC's as possible such as the following:

1 - How much money lost due to Royalty Review? (please provide names and links)

2 - Any info on candidates

3 - Any other info that is good for ammo in the election

And a little later on the same thread:

Keep it Coming!

United Against Stelmach!

If party brass is even marginally aware of these conversations going on, I can't see how Stelmach could possibly justify allowing someone so closely associated with Chandler to run.

However, as Ken Chapman points out, this whole business could provide the Alberta Alliance and Wildrose parties with a "common enemy" in Ed Stelmach. Frankly, if that happens, it still does little for Mr. Chandler's own political aspirations - as he continues to demonstrate that he is essentially destructive if you "piss him off".

The whole lot of the shenanigans demonstrates a fundamental point that I have always felt bears a great deal of truth - namely that social and fiscal conservatism are largely mutually incompatible.

Where fiscal conservatism is generally compatible with the notion of multiculturalism as it has evolved in Canada, social conservatism has unfortunately adopted the cloak of Christian Fundamentalist politics. Speaking broadly, fiscal conservatism tends to be rather laissez-faire on social matters - believing that for the most part, people can sort themselves out. The social/religious conservative tends to desire an increased adherence to whatever "scriptural truths" they believe should be enforced in law.

Enforcing "scriptural truths" by force of law is expensive, especially when that law runs orthogonal to foundational aspects of law in Canada - such as the Constitution. This in general tends to make "fiscal conservatives" uncomfortable simply because it means taking a position that will cause the government to spend enormous amounts of money for "gains" that they do not necessarily buy into.

In large part, this is why Stelmach is encountering issues with the "social conservatives" that lurk in the PC party. While Stelmach is apparently a social conservative on a personal level, he seems to be much more of a fiscal conservative in policy terms. Where Ralph Klein was more or less "hands off" in his leadership, which made room for some of these people to step forward (Ted Morton and Victor Doerksen for example), they could do so only as long as they didn't have a "political cost" to Ralph.

Ed Stelmach doesn't enjoy the kind of personal popularity that Ralph did with the electorate, and thus he cannot afford to allow a great deal of dissent within caucus ranks - relying instead upon creating the image of being a "good manager".

No matter how much Chandler wants to protest that he is being misrepresented, the simple fact is that regardless of what he said or didn't say, he has come to represent a particular kind of "social conservative" in the public mind, and it is a kind of "social conservative" that carries a high political price among the voting public.