Feel the PC momentum build!
What a weekend! Did you feel it? The ground breaking momentum the Alberta PCs found on Saturday as they finally rose out of the ashes like a sparkling, flaming phoenix and nominated Some Body as their candidate for the upcoming provincial election in Calgary Egmont. Woohoo! No, you don’t feel it? Yeah, neither did I.
Don’t get me wrong we should be happy the Craig Chandler nomination saga can finally be put to bed, but should we really have cared this much about a party nomination? Sure the nominees and Calgary Egmont PC party members should have been swept up in the hoopla, but why should the rest of us have cared? Raise your hand if you belong to either one of those categories – nominee or Calgary Egmont PC association member? Maybe a handful of you?
I was quite happy not addressing the PC nomination process in this riding again but for readers arriving at this blog for the first time it is the second most searched topic.
Now we can move onto things we ALL should care about – the upcoming provincial election (I’m almost positive it’ll be called in February) among other items I’ll rant and rave about in the near future.
PS – The most searched topic for readers finding this blog for the first time is “sleeping porn”. When they search that they find this post I made about antics in the legislature and parliament. So there you go – us perverts can now read this blog safely knowing there will be no more talk of the Calgary Egmont PC nomination saga.
PPS – Okay, one more note: the Some Body was Jonathan Denis, who came second to Craig Chandler last time, won the nomination this time. Now that the pre-season is over we’ll see who comes out on top in the playoffs. Round two… ding, ding, ding.
PPPS (I don’t thing that is a real thing) – The Wildrose Party and Alberta Alliance party merged into one miniature, non-news-worthy, juggernaut over the weekend (the Wildrose Alliance). That’s why it is so far down in this post.
Learning the true meaning of "democratically elected"
I’ve written about it before and it looks like I’m going to have to write about it again: Craig Chandler – you MUST learn what an election is. Seriously. This is getting embarrassing.
As I stated before Mr. Chandler has not won any election. Elections Canada or Elections Alberta has not overseen any “election” in which he has won jack-squat. They are the bodies in charge of our democratic elections. The only thing Mr. Chandler has done is have more than 50% of a handful of Alberta Progressive Conservative Calgary-Egmont Riding Association members who showed up at a specific community hall on a specific day in November say they wanted him to be their nominee to run in the next provincial election under the Alberta PC banner. That’s a long way from being “democratically elected” to anything.
So why is Chandler, who announced a couple days ago that he will run in Calgary-Egmont as an independent, touting the fact his campaign signage will contain the phrase: the “democratically elected conservative candidate for Calgary-Egmont”. Nope. Sorry, that’s probably going to be some other person. Probably one who doesn’t slag and sue his own party.
On a related note – my rabbit and I just held an “election” and I’m please report I have been named Assistant Deputy Prime Minister of Everything. (The bunny abstained on the third ballot – that broke the stalemate and sealed my victory.) As my first act I am going to introduce legislation to make snow tires mandatory and to lower the legal blood alcohol level for drivers to .05.
The rabbit is ticked I’m using my powers so recklessly.
See Canada? Alberta’s not a bunch of rednecks! (Oh, except that guy…)
So it looks like on Saturday the Alberta PC Party decided it would be a bad idea to let Craig Chandler run in the upcoming election.
I don’t want to get into regurgitating the whole story so I’ll let FFWD do it here instead. (The article is complete with the prerequisite offending Chandler quotes to keep your scandalous needs satisfied.)
I can’t say that I blame the Stelmach crew for ditching him. Like others have said if: if he was allowed to run he would become a lighting rod used by Alberta Liberals and Alberta NDP throughout the next election to drum up support to oust the Tories. But the interesting thing I see in this thinking is that it makes the assumption that the majority of Alberta PC voters are not “big-C”, traditional, social, over-the-top-type conservatives. Have we finally reached that critical mass in Alberta? Is the stereotype waning, or (heaven forbid!) not true? Perhaps this even means that the Liberals actually do have an outside shot at winning the election after all.
I’m not convinced however. I think it actually just means the vast majority of Albertans are not bigots or homophobic. Sorry Rest of Canada, but it looks like you really will have to give up that stereotype now. And at least this means there is some good news coming out of the Craig Chandler conundrum after all.
One final thought on the Chandler situation: Chandler and Calgary-Egmont PC riding association president, David Crutcher (who himself was just recently dumped by the association), have been quoted often this past week as saying they hope Stelmach would do the right thing and they’ll “see if democracy triumphs”. I don’t buy into this. A nomination is not ‘a democracy’. It is inner-party policy. And when that party policy also says the party can hand pick a candidate and skip the nomination process, that is not ‘democracy’. (The democracy part is the election.) However the PCs may need to explain why they allowed Chandler to run, get elected as their rep, and then change their mind. This sure seems like politics masquerading as a democracy. You can’t have it both ways.
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