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Originally Posted by MarchHare
There's absolutely ZERO chance that Anders becomes the next WRP leader. If he's even on the ballot, I -- a latte-sipping small-l liberal -- will personally buy a party membership just so I can vote against him.
Assuming Smith's upcoming presser is to announce her resignation (what else could it be?), I have no idea who will replace her. Does the WRP have any star candidates waiting in the wings? Someone capable and experienced enough to take on Prentice in a general election? I honestly can't think of anyone. Maybe Jason Kenney, but I think he has eyes on the federal CPC leadership if/when Harper loses an election and resigns.
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Not me. I would buy a membership to vote for Anders as the leader of the Wildrose. Politics 101.
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Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
I suspect where we differ is on expectations: I never thought they had a realistic shot in Elbow, so given that I would say their showing was very strong. In that context, the real question is whether they can raise enough money to run that kind of campaign province-wide. If they can they will be a force in the next election, not in Elbow, but Currie, Buffalo, and other urban-sense ridings. Let's not forget that Calgarians, even urban ones, won't vote NDP--that is abundantly clear. The issue to me is where centrists will park their vote next time given the choice between an Alberta Party that exceeded expectations in Elbow and a Liberal Party that was honestly an afterthought in four byelections.
Building a party from the ground up takes a lot of time; I think the Alberta Party looks at this as a partial victory. Obviously winning would have been better, but the riding didn't look all that winnable in the beginning. Given that, I don't see how they consider folding their tents after this.
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Of course the Alberta Party looks at this as a small victory. The fact remains this was a golden opportunity. I thinks its interesting that you keep focusing in Clark beating Susan Wright because if he didn't it would be a clear disaster. Realistically the bar is not set at beating the Liberals in a by election against a candidate. We're talking about a party leader here, so for Clark the bar is he had to win. The Alberta Party got trounced by the Liberals in the other ridings, who got trounced by the other major parties.