the morning after & mark norris, leadership candidate inc.

This is a perfect example of what happens when a politician stays around past his best before date. As a non-Tory in Alberta, I am happy to see that 45.6% of delegates at the Alberta PC convention agreed with me that it was time for Klein to go. He was arrogant, visionless, and out of touch.

Allie has a couple posts up this morning live from the convention with her reaction.

Klein is expected to hold a press conference this afternoon to announce his future.

It should be interesting to see what the leadership candidates do from now... is the June 1st deadline for Ministers to resign in place? How will this effect Dave Hancock? I'm sure Jim Dinning is pleased.

Speaking of leadership candidates, what's up with Mark Norris'? The Edmonton Journal is reporting that he is collecting a monthly salary of $10,000 from private donors in his run for the Alberta PC leadership...

[Cal] Nichols and other Norris friends incorporated GLG Consulting (for Grassroots Leadership Group) on Dec. 29, 2004.

So far it has collected $10,000 each from almost 120 "founders," for a total of about $1.2 million.

Norris, president of GLG and its "founders group," sends donors a personal thank-you letter. And the company mails an invoice for $10,000, plus $700 GST, to contributors or their companies.

Norris and Nichols said the donors are free to claim the business expense as a tax deduction.

Asked if they've found a way to make leadership donations tax deductible, Nichols said, "Yep. We are transparent. We have nothing to hide."

But U of C political analyst David Taras was shocked by the arrangement.

"Wow, I've never heard of that," he said. "It's like he's a political trust fund baby. It sounds like a leadership campaign being run as a business. It's hard to know whether they're being really smart or really stupid.

"It takes your breath away -- talk about a politician being sponsored by private individuals."

Can I buy a stock in Mark Norris Inc?