Quote:
Originally Posted by Bend it like Bourgeois
The politics of GSAs as an election issue are interesting to me
It’s largely a non event outside Alberta. Notley has successfully made it a wedge on a pretty fine point of distinction compared to other provinces. And she’s mobilized her supporters to hammer it.
Kenney had to know that was coming. So he’s clearly betting that the level of noise <> level of actual opposition and a more populist position will help him. He’s defending his position but not overtly attacking the other side. That suggests to me he is trying to be onside with populist views but sensitive to not appearing mean spirited to those who would see this issue as beige.
He might be dead wrong on all counts. Notley can only play the indignation card so many times before it loses effect though. If he’s right, she’s wasting a lot of campaign capital.
It’s a significant risk for both sides.
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It has to be careful political calculus on the part of Kenney.
The Wild Rose got ~34-35% of the vote in 2012 in the 'Lake of Fire' election in the middle of the $100/bbl with pipeline access days. You would have to figure that regardless of how regressive the UCP policies get, he probably has that percentage of the vote in his back pocket (the more retrograde the social policies might even motivate portions of that base to show up for him on election day even more!). Layer on the economic issues and he probably figures he's still going to come out with 45-50% of the vote which is way more than enough to have a majority government and he gets to do it while tossing some red meat to his base.
For those of us that are more progressive in our social stances, but simply cannot accept another NDP government on fiscal / economic grounds, it's unsettling that this trade off is being made because it leaves open the door for the NDP to pull this one out and exposes an opening for the Alberta party to steal urban, non-religious conservative votes. We'll see if the Alberta Party can capitalize on this and shift a little right in their campaigning. No evidence of that thus far as their announcements have been for increasing spending in areas and a promise of gender equality in cabinet. Their game-plan looks to be to attempt to rise in relevance by rivaling or displacing the NDP as opposition to a UCP government rather than to steal UCP votes. Looks more like Justin Trudeau's Liberal party than a fiscally conservative, socially neutral party.