Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Big Story: Smith Shits Bed
Did I see that coming? Nope.
I had predicted 74 Tories, 6 Liberals, and 3 New Democrats getting elected. Boy was I wrong. And boy am I thankful. I feel like dancing in the streets.
Who won this election? Well, Ralph gets to stay as Premier, but not for three and three quarters years - his own party will see to that. I guess you could say that the Tory leadership contenders were winners (well, except Norris - see ya, Mark), since the party is now ripe for a takeover and rebuilding. But to find a silver lining in this for the Tories is a stretch, despite some straw-grasping by some of the party's more devoted cheerleaders. Elections are not run against other candidates but against expectations, and the P.C.s fell short of everybody's.
The Liberals were the big winners. Nobody had given them a chance at seventeen seats. Hell, I said that they'd be lucky to gain on the five they held at dissolution, let alone the seven they won last time. And three Liberals in Calgary? I'd have been less surprised to see three prostitutes in a convent.
The Alliance was also a winner, since few gave them a chance at winning a seat. If Jim Dinning is this province's next Premier, the Alliance will pick up big in rural Alberta. I'm glad of this. Don't get me wrong, I find the party batshit crazy (Roman described the races in some rural ridings as the candidates tripping over themselves to convince the voters that they were the most amenable to allowing the sport hunting of gays with unregistered guns), but anything that introduces new elements into rural Alberta's political monoculture is renowned at this point. Something strikes me as a little weird, though - the Alberta Party only contested four ridings, and it beat the Alliance in half of those. Any explanations?
The New Democrats were winners too, but nowhere near on the scale of the other two parties. They were widely expected to win three or four seats - which they did - but some optimistic observers had them at five. More troublingly, they finished behind the Green Party in Calgary, which bodes ill for their chances of a pan-provincial movement.
On a personal note, it gave me great satisfaction to see my own MLA, Mary O'Neill, lose her seat. Mary, you're a nice lady and very hardworking, but anybody who refuses to directly engage in substantive policy discussion during an election campaign does not deserve to hold elected office. I wish you all the best out of it.
So yes, I, an opponent of the Klein government, am nothing short of thrilled with an election result that gave the Klein government close to three quarters of the seats, and which did not even come close to identifying a party with a reasonable shot at forming a government after the next election, or even the one after that. Only in Alberta, you say?
Shut up, I'm lacing up my dancing shoes, I reply.
|
Did I see that coming? Nope.
I had predicted 74 Tories, 6 Liberals, and 3 New Democrats getting elected. Boy was I wrong. And boy am I thankful. I feel like dancing in the streets.
Who won this election? Well, Ralph gets to stay as Premier, but not for three and three quarters years - his own party will see to that. I guess you could say that the Tory leadership contenders were winners (well, except Norris - see ya, Mark), since the party is now ripe for a takeover and rebuilding. But to find a silver lining in this for the Tories is a stretch, despite some straw-grasping by some of the party's more devoted cheerleaders. Elections are not run against other candidates but against expectations, and the P.C.s fell short of everybody's.
The Liberals were the big winners. Nobody had given them a chance at seventeen seats. Hell, I said that they'd be lucky to gain on the five they held at dissolution, let alone the seven they won last time. And three Liberals in Calgary? I'd have been less surprised to see three prostitutes in a convent.
The Alliance was also a winner, since few gave them a chance at winning a seat. If Jim Dinning is this province's next Premier, the Alliance will pick up big in rural Alberta. I'm glad of this. Don't get me wrong, I find the party batshit crazy (Roman described the races in some rural ridings as the candidates tripping over themselves to convince the voters that they were the most amenable to allowing the sport hunting of gays with unregistered guns), but anything that introduces new elements into rural Alberta's political monoculture is renowned at this point. Something strikes me as a little weird, though - the Alberta Party only contested four ridings, and it beat the Alliance in half of those. Any explanations?
The New Democrats were winners too, but nowhere near on the scale of the other two parties. They were widely expected to win three or four seats - which they did - but some optimistic observers had them at five. More troublingly, they finished behind the Green Party in Calgary, which bodes ill for their chances of a pan-provincial movement.
On a personal note, it gave me great satisfaction to see my own MLA, Mary O'Neill, lose her seat. Mary, you're a nice lady and very hardworking, but anybody who refuses to directly engage in substantive policy discussion during an election campaign does not deserve to hold elected office. I wish you all the best out of it.
So yes, I, an opponent of the Klein government, am nothing short of thrilled with an election result that gave the Klein government close to three quarters of the seats, and which did not even come close to identifying a party with a reasonable shot at forming a government after the next election, or even the one after that. Only in Alberta, you say?
Shut up, I'm lacing up my dancing shoes, I reply.
