Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
You know you're desperate when the Liberals have no other defense against the WRA than to paint them as right-wing wackos.
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I agree, that might be something that rings true with red tory voters in Edmonton who's move to vote for Stelmach was based on a voter need to be 'centrist,' and at times can be found to vote Liberal. What really happened in the by-election was that everyone who always votes Liberal voted Liberal, many typical tory voters stayed home (Thus lowering the turnout and magnifying the Liberal and WRA vote on a percentage basis), and former Tory voters who posses conservative ideology voted WRA. Anyone who switched votes from the tories to the WRA in the by-election in my estimation would have no problems voting for a party that was labelled as "extreme" by someone like Swann.
The jist of the Liberal platform hasn't really changed all that much in 15 years. The Alberta Liberal mantra has always been: Strong Defence of Medicare reinforced by plans to improve XYZ by funding XYZ, Strong support of public education by funding primary, secondary and post secondary XYZ, Lip service to poverty groups, lip service to better more accountable government, support arts and cultural groups by funding XYZ, etc. etc. What has changed is who has been marketing these ideas: McBeth, Taft, and now Swann. Obviously Liberal Party members think that the failures of the past have been a failure to commincate the message and not the message itself. Hence the "Let's change the party name but carry on the status quo" movement.
Reality is that former PC voters do have a problem with that message. When the platform reads like that it implies that the only way the province runs fiscally sound with increased funding pledges is with either higher taxes (Provincial oil/gas royalties, income taxes, sales taxes), or massive cuts to other areas of the government or a mix of both. A PC voter when faced with that will say "Do Not want" 9 times out of 10. The only time the Liberals significantly found themselves on the map with a lot of these voters is when under Lawrence Decore, they offered fiscal policy aimed at balancing the books that did not include massive tax hikes. Bottom line, if the Liberals want to be in play and to squeeze out the PCs, they have to be able to offer a more centrist stance themselves that moves right.