Tag: Alberta Election 2008

Well.

That sucked.

Tonight’s the big night: Polls will close in Wild Rose Country at 8pm Mountain Time and my campaign work for the Alberta Liberal Party in my home province will be done.  For those interested, feel free to use this open thread to discuss the results as they come in.

For results, I’ll be keeping my eye on CBC and Elections Alberta.

As a handy guide, here are the seats that I’ll be watching as potential (but not necessarily likely) flips tonight:

PC-held

Edmonton-Castle Downs

Edmonton-Mill Creek

Edmonton-Whitemud

Sturgeon-Spruce Grove-St. Albert

Sherwood Park

Calgary-Buffalo (Open)

Calgary-North Hill

Calgary-Montrose

Calgary-McCall

Calgary-MacKay

Calgary-Foothills

Calgary-Northwest

Calgary-Bow

Calgary-West

Calgary-Glenmore

Calgary-Egmont (Open)

Calgary-Fort

Calgary-Fish Creek

Lethbridge-West (Open)

Medicine Hat

Red Deer-North

Red Deer-South

West Yellowhead (Open)

Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo

Lacombe-Ponoka (strong Green challenge)

Dunvegan-Central Peace (Alliance challenge)

Peace River (Alliance challenge)

Liberal-Held

Calgary-Elbow

Calgary-Varsity

Calgary-Currie

Calgary-Mountain View

Edmonton-McClung

Edmonton-Meadowlark (Open)

St. Albert

Edmonton-Decore

Edmonton-Ellerslie

Lethbridge-East

NDP-Held

Edmonton-Strathcona (Open)

Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview

Edmonton-Calder

Alliance-Held

Cardston-Taber-Warner

Independent-Held

Edmonton-Manning

And now for something completely different.

If you haven’t seen me around SSP much in the last couple of months, allow me to finally explain why.  Yes, I’ve taken a job on a campaign, and yes, we’re gearing up for an early March vote.  But it’s not Texas or Ohio where I’m working — it’s my home province of Alberta, Canada.

In December, I left my internship at Talking Points Memo and New York City behind to come back home and serve as the online coordinator for the Alberta Liberal Party during our province’s 2008 election.  The chance to take part in this uphill battle was something that I couldn’t pass up.

Alberta, for the uninitiated, has been dominated by the ruling Progressive Conservatives (yes, the name is an oxymoron) for 37 straight years.  This kind of unbroken monopoly on government creates plenty of room for abuse of power and an arrogant sense of entitlement by the Tory elite.  However, Alberta’s vast natural resource wealth has facilitated massive government surpluses and a booming economy in the past decade — and the general attitude of “not rocking the boat” has effectively made Alberta a one-party state.

But there are signs of fatigue.  The rapid development of the oil sands has turned the economy white hot, but has also put tremendous pressure on our crumbling infrastructure and spiked the cost of living (especially housing) several times over.  Our public health care system is under strain, and environmental issues are closing in fast on this carbon-heavy province.

Coming off the 14-year reign of Premier (think: Governor) Ralph Klein, a folksy former mayor of Calgary whose gravitas in the media was nearly impeccable, Alberta’s latest Premier, Ed Stelmach, is charisma-challenged and beleaguered with the tasks of managing Alberta’s runaway growth.

The map pretty much tells the story, but you’ll have to remember that, north of the border, blue is the color of Conservatives, while the official Alberta Liberal color is red, and the left-wing rump is represented by the New Democratic Party’s orange threads.  The sole district in green is represented by the far-right Wildrose Alliance Party.

As Alberta Liberals, our representation in the Legislature is a meager 16 out of 83 seats.  The bulk of the Liberal caucus represents metropolitan Edmonton — my hometown.  With a large working-class population, a substantial number of government employees, and the influence of the left-leaning University of Alberta, Edmonton is about the friendliest turf in the province for any party that’s to the left of the Conservatives.  But with the New Democrats playing the role of bratty Naderite spoilers outside of their four seats of control, most of the districts in the city are decided by razor-thin margins and could easily flip on a dime.

But there’s a big opportunity for the Alberta Liberals to make a breakthrough in the traditionally solid Conservative city of Calgary.  Stelmach, a farmer from the Edmonton area, is unpopular there, and many residents view him as out-of-touch with the rapidly-growing city’s needs.  With Stelmach dragging his own party down in Calgary and strong candidates stepping up for the Alberta Liberals, we could see the Tory city of Calgary turn a shade of Liberal red on March 3rd.

With rural Alberta still solidly Tory (and represented by disproportionately more seats than the cities get), as Liberals, our targets are mostly the districts in the bigger cities and suburbs of Edmonton and Calgary, and the medium or small-sized cities like Red Deer, Lethbridge, and Medicine Hat.

Without the overwhelming financial resources of the Tories, and our left flank divided by the sanctimonious NDP, winning this election is a steep battle.  But something feels different this time, and we could be in for a surprise on March 3rd.