1) On Active and Passive Homophobia in Alberta with Dave Rodney, Laurie Blakeman, Rachel Notley, and Lindsay Blackett.
2) Stupid Questions and Stupid Answers from Ron Liepert and Hugh MacDonald. Does Speaker Ken Kowalski even bother showing up anymore?
3) Ron Liepert and Brent Shervey, it's a 'were are they now?' of Team Dinning.
4) Rachel Notley petitions against Nuclear power.
5) Lindsay Blackett on rodeo. Nov 7: "I have no problem supporting that motion." Nov 26: "Does a province need a provincial sport? I frankly don’t think so." ...
6) Flying very low under the radar is the Alberta Liberal leadership contest. Dave Taylor v. David Swann v. Mo Eslalhy. Listen to the podcast.
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..and the electorate continues to wait.. tapping their feet, for the Liberal party to offer something, anything, for Albertans to believe in.
ReplyDelete..well?
*crickets chirping*
..get back to me when they have something positive to propose, as opposed to just complaining about how bad everything is.
I actually have said some positive things about Dave Taylor.. but haven't yet seen a "change I can believe in".
To be fair, rob, it's more likely that the majority of the electorate is waiting for any of the parties to offer something, judging by the 37%-40% turnout in the March 2008 election.
ReplyDeleteNone of Alberta's political parties have the moral high-ground when it comes to popular support in the March 2008 election.
The Liberal leadership contest is gathering no momentum because it was designed in the worst way possible. The ability to buy memberships that will be allowed to participate in the vote closed ages ago, long before several of the scheduled forums between the three contenders.
ReplyDeleteThe Liberals have so much to offer policy wise, and so much to learn politically. Why do you think the PCs let people buy memberships ON THE VERY DAY OF THE VOTE?!? Because most of us don't plan ahead for leadership contests. We get interested in these things as they just about to happen... or even as they happen!
The PC system has its own flaws, rigged nomination meetings, etc. But surely there was a better way to handle this Liberal contest than by closing membership sales long before there was much public interest.
Dave Taylor will win. He has the most public support and, from what I hear, the most members signed up.
As he moves the Liberals towards the centre, he will need to eject the NDP-lites like Blakeman and Hugh McDonald.
Thanks for the podcast shout-out! We just posted another one of Brian Mason singing in the legislature -- pretty funny....
ReplyDeleteArchie McLean
I heard Swann signed up the most members. He has a lot of NDP support in Calgary-Mountainview, in addition to the Kensington crowd. So much so, that the NDP candidate in the last election ran a half-hearted campaign so as not to split his vote.
ReplyDelete"Rigged nomination meetings?" I agree the Conservative leadership process and nominations process have some flaws, but rigged nomination meetings? Please. If the nomination meetings were rigged, Tony Abbott would not have lost his nomination in Drayton Valley-Calmar and Craig Chandler wouldn't have won a nomination in the first place. There were a number of nominations where the expected winner did not win.
ReplyDeleteLike the leadership process, every constituency must sell memberships right up to the close of voting in a nomination. The model nomination rules mandated by the party also minimize barriers to entry - you only need 25 signatures and a maximum $500 deposit. Unlike the Alberta Liberals, the Conservatives see the benefits of encouraging citizen participation in leadership and nomination processes, and make it easy. It also does the party good - they had almost $800,000 in membership revenue in 2006. How many years does it take the Liberals to raise $800k?
The real flaw in the Conservative process is the inability to dump candidates like Chandler before they spend money to win a nomination for a party that doesn't want them. How you fix that problem without introducing some element of personal bias into the system is beyond me, however.