Merger Or Takeover?

It's hard to say just what really was going on with this weekend's merging of Alberta Alliance and Wildrose Parties. Did the Alliance simply subsume Link Byfield's latest pet project? Or was the Alliance so troubled internally that the Wildrose Party's backers were able to grasp control of the larger entity and the money that it has?

There are, of course, other possible reasons for this weekend's marriage of far right wing and farther right wing parties. I've never been overly impressed with the Alberta Alliance - the party always struck me as little more than a provincial knock-off of the old Reform party. As for the Wildrose thing, there's no secret about what kind of "conservatism" the Byfield patriarchs represent, and it's a pretty hardline view on a lot of topics.

For quite some time, I've been hearing grumblings that the PC's aren't "conservative enough" from various corners, which no doubt fuels the spawning of parties like either the Alliance or Wildrose, but only seems to represent a fairly sparse minority of the province.
[Correction 21/1/08]:
The original version of this post incorrectly attributed a comment to Jane Greydanus from Daveberta's blog. I have removed the incorrect attribution, and extend my apologies to Ms. Greydanus.
[/Correction]
There's just enough to get a party started, but they seem to be of the ideological ilk that doesn't quite understand why their views aren't more broadly held by the electorate .

I do not begrudge the existence of these parties - it gives an ideological home to the far right, and lets the rest of us recognize the hardliners for what they are. But the history in Alberta (and much of Canada, really) is that such parties seldom last long enough to gain any real traction.

However, in Alberta today, you need to get a significant amount of traction with the voters in the urban areas - especially Calgary and Edmonton, but Red Deer, Lethbridge and Grande Prairie all have a fair bit of weight now. Both Calgary and Edmonton have experienced huge population growth in recent years (with Calgary cresting over 1 million residents - somewhere on order of a 10%-15% change since last election). No matter how you look at it, that has the potential to substantially change the character of the electorate.

Had the Ralph Klein resigned in the 1990s, and the Alberta Alliance visible at that time, they might have gained significant electoral traction. Alberta today is nowhere near the same province that it was back then. Today, they represent a tiny fraction of voters, and the Wildrose an even tinier fraction.

Ask yourself this - if the Alberta Alliance was the natural home for "conservative" voters disaffected with the PC's, why did Link Byfield go starting the Wildrose Party a year or so back? He couldn't find a home in the Alberta Alliance? It had already drifted too far left for him?

I suspect that this "merged party" will quietly fade into the political background in Alberta after an election expected this spring.