[TKB]

Originally Posted by Zarley

Save me? Yikes - this isn't some personality cult here! I know a lot of people care about the personal characteristics of party leaders, but I tend not to get caught up in that stuff. My chief concerns - in this and any other election - revolve around fiscal and economic policy. For the record, I'm neither here nor there on Kenney.

It's evident that you've bought into this narrative about Kenney that the NDP have been pushing (rather than actually running a campaign), but I think you'd be well served in taking a step back and thinking critically about the content in that link you posted. Aside from being context-less snapshots that are biased by the accompanying text, and the general inadequacy of Twitter as an information medium; the allegations presented are fairly implausible:

- What's conveniently glossed over is that out of 100,000 email addresses, only 49 were flagged by CBC as suspicious - thats's .05%.
- Politics in northeast Calgary are old school. Tammany Hall style machine tactics are commonplace, particularly amongst the Punjabi community. There are all kinds of community bigshots who fancy themselves as power brokers. The type of stuff reported by CBC is unfortunately commonplace (think back to the last Federal Tory leadership race when someone was caught giving out gift cards to pay for memberships). I'm not surprised to see that happening, but it's likely connected to a community organizer rather than some concerted effort by the Kenney camp.
- The financial stuff related to Jeff Callaway is certainly more concerning, however the motive for Kenney to interfere in the leadership race simply doesn't exist. He was always favoured to win by a sizable margin, he would have known this, and in the end he nearly doubled the vote of the nearest competitor. For me, it's these numbers that make the vote rigging allegations implausible. He'd have to be a psychopath to risk everything to game a race he was sure to win regardless.

My point is that it's good to step back and take these things with a grain of salt.

Having said all that - this election is not a referendum on the personal traits of the party leaders, it's about making Alberta an attractive place for capital again. I think Rachel Notley's a fine person and I'd much rather have a beer with her than Jason Kenney, but one party has a decent vision that should work to improve business confidence in this province and the other is comprised of people who fundamentally lack an understanding of how wealth is created in a market economy.

Couldn’t have said it any better myself.