April 23 2012: Alberta Provincial Election

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Yeah, I'm a bit confused. I'm supposed to be outraged that Danielle Smith wrote a column 9 years ago, expressing a view that has now been endorsed by the Ontario Court of Appeal?

Surely there are better things to take her to task on.

Yeah, but how do you win back the socially conservative then?

[Spuds_Buckley]

Originally Posted by c.t.ner

Thanks for setting this up First Lady.

It's going to be an interesting, interesting election. No prediction on my side, as I'm not up on what the current polling trends are. All I know is that Redford's political team has really dropped the ball in the past two weeks and I can see momentum growing for the WRP. Right now the WRP and Alberta Libs are really benefiting from some of the errors made by the Redford's team.

As a side note, and I'm putting this here because two members from Cpuck (including myself) are working on it, but we've launched a project called AlbertaTweets.ca. Basically a web data and visualization project to track the online conversation during the election. It's a fun side project, but it might be useful/interesting to you political junkies.

Nice work on the site. Very interesting to see that the WRA seems to be taking the most advantage of social media outlets. If the last Calgary municipal election is any indication (ie. Nenshi), this might have a significant effect on the voting results.

Never big into politics, but this election might actually grab my attention.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by fredr123

I have decided who I will be voting for yet, but it's statements like this coupled with Redford ram-rodding the Point Oh Five legislation through the legislature causes me grave concern.

This jives with my views of Redford too. She's a "the government (specifically Allison Redford) knows best type." These types of politicians can do extreme and long lasting damages to our freedoms.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby

Yeah, but how do you win back the socially conservative then?

Now that you say that, you're absolutely right--that must be her strategy.

But this is in my view based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Alberta conservatism, which is in my view not generally social conservatism. At least, not in Calgary--where I think you have a lot of socially liberal entrepreneurial types who think along the lines that Cowboy89 set out.

For that reason, it's a mistake (IMO) for the PCs to try to compete with the WRA for social conservatives. Social conservatives are going to vote Wild Rose anyway--they've been waiting for a farther-right option for 35 years, and if there were an even farther right option, they'd vote for them too. Instead, the PCs need to do what they've done for the last three decades, which is to keep their fingers on the Alberta "middle," which has always been fiscal conservatism and social liberalism.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Now that you say that, you're absolutely right--that must be her strategy.

But this is in my view based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Alberta conservatism, which is in my view not generally social conservatism. At least, not in Calgary--where I think you have a lot of socially liberal entrepreneurial types who think along the lines that Cowboy89 set out.

For that reason, it's a mistake (IMO) for the PCs to try to compete with the WRA for social conservatives. Social conservatives are going to vote Wild Rose anyway--they've been waiting for a farther-right option for 35 years, and if there were an even farther right option, they'd vote for them too. Instead, the PCs need to do what they've done for the last three decades, which is to keep their fingers on the Alberta "middle," which has always been fiscal conservatism and social liberalism.

A common misconception about social conservatives (and no, I'm not one of them) is that they want to impose their views on others. This isn't true at all; they simply want the freedom "to be". IE: no government interference in religion, teaching their children, dictation on moral issues, etc.

Wildrose stands for protecting the freedoms of all. PC are (and have been for a while now) going down the wrong path in an effort to capture this niche voter.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Now that you say that, you're absolutely right--that must be her strategy.

But this is in my view based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Alberta conservatism, which is in my view not generally social conservatism. At least, not in Calgary--where I think you have a lot of socially liberal entrepreneurial types who think along the lines that Cowboy89 set out.

For that reason, it's a mistake (IMO) for the PCs to try to compete with the WRA for social conservatives. Social conservatives are going to vote Wild Rose anyway--they've been waiting for a farther-right option for 35 years, and if there were an even farther right option, they'd vote for them too. Instead, the PCs need to do what they've done for the last three decades, which is to keep their fingers on the Alberta "middle," which has always been fiscal conservatism and social liberalism.

You're probably right. But a lot of the old guard in rural Alberta that would normally vote PC view Redford as 'too liberal'. So they have to do something in terms of damage control.

Alberta conservatism hasn't been unified really in the last decade or even longer anyways. Look at how Stelmach won the leadership of the PCs. You had Dinning verses Morton. "Calgary conservatism" like you describe, and then the stronger bible belt esq conservatism allowed everyone's second choice to win.

[The Ditch]

What is the Wild Rose's official stance on LGBT rights and gay marriage. I have been looking through their website and it's extremely vague on all accounts.

[IntenseFan]

Ideally I would like to see this result on April 23:

1. WRA minority, with PC's holding the balance of power. That will probably force the PCs a bit fiscally right of where they are now and allow the government to become more fiscally responsible, while keeping anything on a social conservative or overly libertarian agenda in the background. It would also hand the arrogant PC's a much needed message that they need to re-tool.

A slightly less desirable result, although probably still good would be:

2. PC minority, with WRA holding the balance of power. That might accomplish some of the same goals as the above, albeit I don't trust Redford the social engineer very much. I also think this result would do much less to remove the sense of entitlement the PC's have obviously been overcome with lately because they still would have won the election.

A much less desirable result would be as follows:

3. PC majority. Still probably the most likely result. Nothing would change and our fiscal woes will likely get incrementaly worse.

A disater would be:

4. PC minority with left wing parties NDP/Libs together able to hold the balance of power despite any gains by WRA. The government would likely go straight to the fiscal left (moreso than right now). A sales tax would be almost guaranteed. Spending would become more out of control than it already is and much of Redford's social engineering would likely go through without anything more than token opposition.

I have not analyzed a WRA majority, because I don't think it is possible.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by First Lady

A common misconception about social conservatives (and no, I'm not one of them) is that they want to impose their views on others. This isn't true at all; they simply want the freedom "to be". IE: no government interference in religion, teaching their children, dictation on moral issues, etc.

I really don't think it's misconception in all cases. Perhaps it's not as overarching as is assumed. But a lot of social conservatives (mostly on religious lines) care about how others live their live. They want to be left alone, you're right. But they also defiantly have opinions on how I should live my life. Based on their moral compass.

They're not lepers in a colony just wanting to be left alone.

[Slava]

The Wildrose as fiscally conservative is even mind boggling to me. As far as I've seen nothing has been costed, which is just one issue.

More importantly though the whole thing is predicated on saving $2 Billion from carbon capture, which is fine enough. The problem is that its not actually $2 Billion anymore. Nearly half has been spent and who knows how much more it would cost in terms of lawsuits and other business issues that could arise?

Then we get to the all important issue of taxation. How can you claim to be fiscal conservatives when the plan calls for using nearly all of the one-time resource funds we get at this point to keep taxes low for the short-term only? Its pure ideology and has less to do with fiscal conservatism and more to do with saying "we have low taxes". Frankly it strikes me as intellectually dishonest; they know its not really accurate, but don't want to say it until after they're in office.

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by Slava

Frankly it strikes me as intellectually dishonest; they know its not really accurate, but don't want to say it until after they're in office.

For the first time, I agreed completely with you of your description of the NDP budget passed by Redford government.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by darklord700

For the first time, I agreed completely with you of your description of the NDP budget passed by Redford government.

Now I'm remembering why your post about the election being between a rock and a hard place was so ridiculous yesterday!

[darklord700]

http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/03/27...-back-to-black

Back to Black Danielle vs Red Ink Redford. Who cares about hos?

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by First Lady

A common misconception about social conservatives (and no, I'm not one of them) is that they want to impose their views on others. This isn't true at all; they simply want the freedom "to be". IE: no government interference in religion, teaching their children, dictation on moral issues, etc.

Wildrose stands for protecting the freedoms of all. PC are (and have been for a while now) going down the wrong path in an effort to capture this niche voter.

Let's lay it all on the table and talk about exactly what the common 'moral issues' they take issue with actually are.

The issues they have in this provincial election come down to that they want the right to continue to teach their children to believe that homosexuality is an evil sin, evolution doesn't exist because it's not in the Bible, and that premarital sex is wrong and since children cannot marry until 18, they shouldn't be taught anything about sex whatsoever until then.

The Libertarian in me says, go ahead and teach your kids those values. I have no problem with that in isolation. The problems with me begin when they want to be able to send their kids to public schools (or even publically funded private schools) and essentially pick what parts of the curriculum offend their sensibilities and exempt their kids from said instruction.

I say: Too f'n bad, if you want to pick and choose what you're kids are exposed to then teach them yourself at your own expense in time and money and they better f'n pass the diploma exams in science, biology, and social studies regardless of whether or not a few evolution/charles darwin or Sexual Orientation charter of rights and freedom questions find their way into the exams, in order to get an Alberta high school diploma.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Let's lay it all on the table and talk about exactly what the common 'moral issues' they take issue with actually are.

The issues they have in this provincial election come down to that they want the right to continue to teach their children to believe that homosexuality is an evil sin, evolution doesn't exist because it's not in the Bible, and that premarital sex is wrong and since children cannot marry until 18, they shouldn't be taught anything about sex whatsoever until then.

The Libertarian in me says, go ahead and teach your kids those values. I have no problem with that in isolation. The problems with me begin when they want to be able to send their kids to public schools (or even publically funded private schools) and essentially pick what parts of the curriculum offend their sensibilities and exempt their kids from said instruction.

I say: Too f'n bad, if you want to pick and choose what you're kids are exposed to then teach them yourself at your own expense in time and money and they better f'n pass the diploma exams in science, biology, and social studies regardless of whether or not a few evolution/charles darwin or Sexual Orientation charter of rights and freedom questions find their way into the exams, in order to get an Alberta high school diploma.

Uh oh. Sounds like someone poised to support the Liberals.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by darklord700

Who cares about hos?

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by First Lady

You have something to back this up? I've never heard DS use the term "whiners" even in private conversations. Not her character at all.

I was there. Whiners was my word, but she complained about municipal elected officials, stopping just short of using that word.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

I was there. Whiners was my word, but she complained about municipal elected officials, stopping just short of using that word.

So you're reporting what she said through your lens. Which is fine, perhaps state that in original post next time.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Slava

Uh oh. Sounds like someone poised to support the Liberals.

There really isn't a choice tailored for me in this election. Maybe I'm a whore for money because I'm probably willing to let the 'Calgaryborns' of this province get away with stuff like this to avoid the burden of taxation / higher oil & gas royalties. That said having to make that choice displeases me greatly so I felt the need to speak out on that specific issue.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

There really isn't a choice tailored for me in this election. Maybe I'm a whore for money because I'm probably willing to let the 'Calgaryborns' of this province get away with stuff like this to avoid the burden of taxation / higher oil & gas royalties.

And there in lays the crux of conservatism in Alberta.