April 23 2012: Alberta Provincial Election

[photon]

All a candidate has to do is earn my vote at this point is campaign on stopping polling calls, I got 4 or 5 yesterday.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by c.t.ner

For those curious, we have an update on the Party Leaders At a Glance Infographic for this week.

http://albertatweets.ca/party-leader...st-march-28th/

Kudos to the WildRose for a well done push on the Facebook front, that is a massive surge for Danielle Smith.

Very cool. Looking at the FB page this AM it's up another 1400.

Originally Posted by MarchHare

David Swann first won his seat in 2004, btw (when Ralph Klein was still PC leader), so it's not at all accurate to say that he was only elected because Calgarians were voting in protest against Farmer Ed. Plus, Swann won with over 53% of the vote (the next closest candidate had 30% support).

Anything can happen this election, but I find it hard to imagine a scenario where two popular incumbents like Swann and Hehr lose their seats, especially now that there will be more vote-splitting by their opponents (in the last election, only the Liberals and PCs had more than 10% support in both of those ridings; that will obviously change this time).

Mountain View will be interesting to watch. PC's are running one of their most (l)iberal candidates there. She has been referred to as a Redford clone.

Another very liberal PC candidate is Donna Kennedy-Glans and they are running her in Varsity, Chase's old spot.

I found it surprising the Alberta Party has chosen to run candidates in both Varsity and Buffalo. They will have a tough battle over the same voters as the Libs. (and now PC's since they are seen as left leaning) Could bode very well for the Wildrose.

Originally Posted by photon

All a candidate has to do is earn my vote at this point is campaign on stopping polling calls, I got 4 or 5 yesterday.

I mention again, most parties will remove you from lists if you let them know.

Wildrose can be reached at 403-769-0999 or outside Calgary area 1-888-262-1888

Remember all parties get your info from Elections Alberta, so if one party has it, they all have it.

Updating your info with Elections Alberta at this point will be of little value, in terms of being on party call lists. They sent the mass data out to parties in December.

[First Lady]

^^^ Grammar fail. Too lazy to fix.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by First Lady

Very cool. Looking at the FB page this AM it's up another 1400.



Mountain View will be interesting to watch. PC's are running one of their most (l)iberal candidates there. She has been referred to as a Redford clone.

Another very liberal PC candidate is Donna Kennedy-Glans and they are running her in Varsity, Chase's old spot.

I found it surprising the Alberta Party has chosen to run candidates in both Varsity and Buffalo. They will have a tough battle over the same voters as the Libs. (and now PC's since they are seen as left leaning) Could bode very well for the Wildrose.



I mention again, most parties will remove you from lists if you let them know.

Wildrose can be reached at 403-769-0999 or outside Calgary area 1-888-262-1888

Remember all parties get your info from Elections Alberta, so if one party has it, they all have it.

Updating your info with Elections Alberta at this point will be of little value, in terms of being on party call lists. They sent the mass data out to parties in December.

HAHA! That is hilarious. You're really on fire today! I'm pretty sure that the vote split from the Alberta Party will be roughly 1% shaved off the total, with the other parties fighting for the other 99%. It was a good attempt though. Lets be reasonable, the real vote split there is between the PCs and Wildrose, just like every other riding in the province.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Slava

HAHA! That is hilarious. You're really on fire today! I'm pretty sure that the vote split from the Alberta Party will be roughly 1% shaved off the total, with the other parties fighting for the other 99%. It was a good attempt though. Lets be reasonable, the real vote split there is between the PCs and Wildrose, just like every other riding in the province.

Glad to entertain you.

While I've been very critical of the Alberta Party, I don't think they should be underestimated or written off.

And yes, the sharing of votes between PC / Wildrose will be a factor in some constituencies.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Slava

I'll use my riding as an example, and lets pretend its a job interview. You have to pick someone to make important decisions and here are the candidates:

- a lawyer at a small firm
- a partner at a big law firm
- a university student
- a guy who has lived in Calgary for 16 years
- a candidate who I don't know about, but exists

Is the "guy who lived there for 16 years" unemployed?
I'm guessing that is who the WRA candidate is supposed to be.

I took a quick look at the first dozen or so people on the WRA candidate list, know who was there?

Lawyers
Successful business people, CEO's, CFO's
Journalists
Doctors
Engineers
Current MLA's

Lots of them have run or been heavily involved in charities and non profits. You look through the list and see people of both genders, all colors, wide age group, etc.

These baseless attempts to make the WRA candidates look like a bunch of incompetants does nothing but solidify my vote.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by First Lady

Glad to entertain you.

While I've been very critical of the Alberta Party, I don't think they should be underestimated or written off.

And yes, the sharing of votes between PC / Wildrose will be a factor in some constituencies.

I'm more than happy to write-off the Alberta Party. If you think I've been hard on the Wildrose platform and budget, it pales in comparison to what I think of the Alberta Party and their dreams. Its not the ideas so much, but the fact that its so basic. Didn't anyone bring a calculator to the "Big Listen"?

The Wildrose voters are coming from the PCs. If you guys are banking on getting a lot of support from the Liberals/NDPs you should be re-thinking that pretty quick. Likewise if you are counting on beating Hehr or Swann (or anyone else save for maybe Sue Huff or Glenn Taylor) I wouldn't count on the Alberta Party to split opposition votes for the win.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Is the "guy who lived there for 16 years" unemployed?
I'm guessing that is who the WRA candidate is supposed to be.

I took a quick look at the first dozen or so people on the WRA candidate list, know who was there?

Lawyers
Successful business people, CEO's, CFO's
Journalists
Doctors
Engineers
Current MLA's

Lots of them have run or been heavily involved in charities and non profits. You look through the list and see people of both genders, all colors, wide age group, etc.

These baseless attempts to make the WRA candidates look like a bunch of incompetants does nothing but solidify my vote.

The information from these candidates is from their website. I didn't try to represent anyone as anything other than what I could find about them; its a fair question to me.

I do laugh that this solidifies your vote though. As if it was really up in the air before this!

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Slava

The information from these candidates is from their website. I didn't try to represent anyone as anything other than what I could find about them; its a fair question to me.

You have said over and over again that the WRA candidates are not qualified to be in government. If you want to cherry pick one riding I'm sure I can find a Liberal or PC who is less than desirable.

Originally Posted by Slava

I do laugh that this solidifies your vote though. As if it was really up in the air before this!

I had reservations about the WRA winning a majority, if they were posed to take that many seats I might have changed my vote. Keep in mind I have voted PC about 6 times so far.

I should thank you actually, after looking through the candidate list my mind is put at ease, maybe a WRA majority would be a good thing.

[crazy_eoj]

First of all, let me reframe where this was coming from. Someone scoffed at the very idea of cutting spending to match tax revenue. Saying it was totally impossible. And clearly that is not true.

All I wanted to show is that it IS possible to do a 25% reduction in spending. I wouldn't necessarily recommend exactly this kind of platform, but I wanted to show it is very possible to find savings of this magnitute immediately.

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

How exactly do you do a bunch of those things.

1. Cut back everyone's salary when they have signed agreements with the government guaranteeing their wages. Even then if someone tried to cut back wages look for there to be a massive reduction in quality of services offered to the public leading to (spoilers) increased cost in the future. You can't just cheap out on everything forever. Saving money is good, wisely spending money is better.

Yes you'd have to get them to agree to the cut, but Ralph Klein did exactly this during his tenure, rolling back salaries 5 %.

Most of the public employees are aware they have had large salary increases compared to the private sector over the past few years. It wouldn't be unreasonable to ask them to give back to the taxpayer as well.

2. Eliminate 25% of management positions? How does someone plan on doing that, that isn't trimming the fat, that is slaughtering the herd.

Huh? We already know the public service has a 4-1 manager to worker ration. Private sector is a 10-1 ratio. Why is it always so much harder to manage public employees than private ones?

Cut. The. Fat.

3. How do you define something as worthless? Honestly, just because you don't agree with something doesn't make it worthless... especially with something like a Human Rights Commission which I would imagine costs next to nothing to operate.

I can't find a link but last I remember their budget is close to 100 million dollars a year. Courts would do a much better job than these wasteful tribunals. Go read some posts from Ezra Levant if you want details as to why this is a worthless program. In fact, didn't he write a best selling book on the subject?

4. Cut the cabinet and committees and save 100 million dollars? So a, you are suggesting essentially no government and b, where the heck did that number come from.

Not at all. Between sitting on (and being paid for) nonexistant or wasteful comittee's, pensions, and the ludicrous transition allowance. (which Redford finally axed... a good thing from her!!) It easily adds up to 100 million dollars. CTF projected amalgamating 3 cabinet portfolios would save 25 million all on its own.

I would suggest that you put money into where you see long term dividends, primary health care and education being the big two. You have a healthy, educated population and it will cost a heck of a lot less in the long run.

Spending can save money as not every dollar spent is a dollar lost. If you put money into preventing someone from getting sick that person doesn't need a hospital bed in the future and at the same time is able to be a productive member of society and pay taxes as well as spend money putting more money back into the economy.

How much do we have to spend to keep people from getting sick and dying? No matter how much, people will ALWAYS end up getting sick and dying. Finding more efficient and effective ways to treat and deliver service makes more sense than pouring even more money into a failing system as we have been for the past 20 years.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Slava

The Wildrose voters are coming from the PCs. If you guys are banking on getting a lot of support from the Liberals/NDPs you should be re-thinking that pretty quick.

I've never even hinted at this, nor do I know any WRP supporter who has.

Though, as I understand it the Alberta Party candidate for my area withdrew based on who won the WRP local nomination.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Jacks

You have said over and over again that the WRA candidates are not qualified to be in government. If you want to cherry pick one riding I'm sure I can find a Liberal or PC who is less than desirable.


I had reservations about the WRA winning a majority, if they were posed to take that many seats I might have changed my vote. Keep in mind I have voted PC about 6 times so far.

I should thank you actually, after looking through the candidate list my mind is put at ease, maybe a WRA majority would be a good thing.

I just think that the talent pool as compared to the PCs is thin. I really don't even know why this is that surprising; its the same issue for all of the opposition parties IMO.

Glad to be of service. I think that there are a lot of PC/Wildrose decisions to be made over the next few weeks.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by First Lady

I found it surprising the Alberta Party has chosen to run candidates in both Varsity and Buffalo. They will have a tough battle over the same voters as the Libs. (and now PC's since they are seen as left leaning) Could bode very well for the Wildrose.

Originally Posted by First Lady

I've never even hinted at this, nor do I know any WRP supporter who has.

Though, as I understand it the Alberta Party candidate for my area withdrew based on who won the WRP local nomination.

I would say that this is quote is basically hinting at that?

I am a little surprised that people think that the Alberta Party is a factor at all. I think if the election was last spring or maybe January or February they might have had an impact or even won a seat or two, but I doubt they earn 500 votes in many ridings.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Slava

I would say that this is quote is basically hinting at that?

????

I had said:

I found it surprising the Alberta Party has chosen to run candidates in both Varsity and Buffalo. They will have a tough battle over the same voters as the Libs. (and now PC's since they are seen as left leaning) Could bode very well for the Wildrose.

In other words, I stated the left leaning votes will be all over the map, going to AP, Libs, and PC's.


You said:

If you guys are banking on getting a lot of support from the Liberals/NDPs you should be re-thinking that pretty quick.

I've never indicated the WRP would "get support" from the Libs or NDs.


I think you are confusing "gaining votes" with "gaining percentage" on potential vote splitting.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by First Lady

????

I had said:

In other words, I stated the left leaning votes will be all over the map, going to AP, Libs, and PC's.


You said:


I've never indicated the WRP would "get support" from the Libs or NDs.


I think you are confusing "gaining votes" with "gaining percentage" on potential vote splitting.

OK, I see what you mean. I guess I was thinking that you were talking about the potential splitting of the Alberta Party/Liberals. I was wrong and you were right!

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Slava

OK, I see what you mean. I guess I was thinking that you were talking about the potential splitting of the Alberta Party/Liberals. I was wrong and you were right!

Quoting before you edit....

[Slava]

Originally Posted by First Lady

Quoting before you edit....

LOL! I would expect nothing else! I should predict a huge Wildrose majority and go 2/2 today!

[TorqueDog]

Here's my problem now:

Vote for the PCs, get the same thing we've always had.
Vote for the Wildrose for a change, but get sh*t like this proposed.

Can't there be one viable party to vote for? Fiscally responsible without having to be irrational and socially inept socially conservative? Please?

[IntenseFan]

^ TorqueDog, I think a WRA minority government with a PC balance of power would take care of most of those socially conservative issues, while at the same time forcing the government fiscally right.

Social issues are likely less important to WRA voters than fiscal issues and that is where compromise with the PC would be sought out (and when I say compromise, I mean the PC's would support a reasonably right wing WRA budget if the WRA gives up on some of their pet social projects).

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Here's my problem now:

Vote for the PCs, get the same thing we've always had.
Vote for the Wildrose for a change, but get sh*t like this proposed.

Good god. Here we go again.

Can't there be one viable party to vote for? Fiscally responsible without having to be irrational and socially inept socially conservative? Please?

I'm socially liberal and feel very at home with the Wildrose. No other party has such a strong stance on freedom for individuals and business.