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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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The AP certainly won't fold their tents, but they pulled what the Greens did in the federal election - put all eggs in one basket and left the other candidates to twist in the wind - and still lost easily. The questionable robocall "scandal", the worked poll results, the fake merger proposal. Carter did a masterful job of making something out of nothing, but it still amounted to pretty much nothing. And now Clark needs to hope that his vote can hold in another riding (because he sure as hell won't run against an incumbent minister if he's smart) and not just a by-election effect.
Meanwhile, you look at the other three ridings, and the Alberta party was completely irrelevant. Even more so than an NDP candidate in Calgary, and finished SIXTH in Calgary-Foothills. Clark can claim a moral victory personally, but his party is slotting in comfortably behind the NDP in the grand scheme of things.
From a Wildrose perspective, the only chance they really had was Calgary-West, and that loss hurts. Smith et al are going to have to put some serious thinking into how to fight the next election. Much like how Hinman's by-election victory invigorated the party, these losses are going to hurt. They will need to plan how to get past it.