UCP Leadership Election

[White Out 403]

*sigh*

Reading through Jason Kenneys own facebook:
"Trudeaus DISDAIN for Àlberta"
"BC will face CONSEQUENCES if we dont get the pipeline built"
"NDP Goverment is a lapdog for the Liberal feds" (this is my favourite because one day later Notley congratulated Kenney for winning in a classy way that probably had him confused for a full 30 minutes while he came up with new attack zingers).
"Even Kenneys enemies...(bla bla bla bull#### bull#### bla bla)"
"Justin Trudeaus NIGHTMARE and he wont even mention Jason by name!"

It's just absurd. This blow hard has been riling up his right wing minions and surrogates for months into a nice frothy anger and suddenly after he wins, the NDP and their people are in attack mode? They're the ones who will go gutter politics? Get real.

[Bootsy]

Kenney will be running in Calgary Lougheed for his by-election

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

His views aren't ambiguous, but whether he implements them as policy (or would like to) is a completely different issue.

I may not agree with someone who thinks abortion is morally wrong, but if they understand that it's the law and don't plan on doing anything about it, it doesn't really matter to me.

I think it’s fair for people to be skeptical based on his history. His platform(whenever he tells us what it is) will be what it is. I doubt he’s going to campaign on taking away abortion rights, but that doesn’t mean he’s never received any political contributions from certain groups who would like to see him back their cause to take away abortion rights once he is in office. I’m not saying that’s going to happen, I just think both his supporters and his critics should be cautious when predicting what he will or won’t do.

[White Out 403]

Alberta, #### YEAH!!

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by Resurrection

Alberta, #### YEAH!!

Agreed....take your condescending bull#### somewhere else.

Spoiler!

[Ozy_Flame]

You respond to an extreme pic with another extreme pic?

[octothorp]

I'll admit that voting for the former Wildrose party for me is a long shot regardless, but for me it would take them taking a progressive stand on a social issue. Their stand on GSAs for example, while more progressive than that of previous conservative parties, is still by far the most regressive of any party in Alberta.

Refusing to talk about or take a stand on social issues isn't good enough, because even if they ignore these issues as part of their official policy, those issues do come up through the process of government and I need proof that they aren't going to always take the most conservative of viable positions. It's certainly alarming to me that the most progressive candidate in their leadership election, which would be probably the bare minimum of what I could see myself voting for, got such a small amount of the vote. That tells me a lot about where the median values of the party are.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

You respond to an extreme pic with another extreme pic?

That's my point. That was stupid. His post was stupid.

I think the best strategy for the left in Alberta is to make anyone who is centre-left, centre, or centre right feel like they are a dumb #### hillbilly. That's proven to be a real solid strategy in getting people to your side.

See how that plays out of for you.

[White Out 403]

I don't see them as being equal. 1 picture is from someones past before they were in politics and were young and stupid and apologized for it.

The other is from an actual political present day event.

[DiracSpike]

You're right they're not equal. One is some random dude at a rally and the other is someone who was a member of the party and elected as an MLA.

[White Out 403]

If you aren't comfortable with being associated with hillbillies don't associate with hillbillies.

[Roughneck]

With weed becoming legal and Alberta having a '#### the rest of Canada' attitude anyway, I'm not so sure the other pics are all that extreme nowadays.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Kenney is going to dismiss all controversial social issues and tell Albertans that it's about the economy, stupid. This is so glaringly obvious.

That should be terrifying to the NDP. If the plan is to virtually ignore those issues and speak about the economy, taxes and jobs I think that's probably effective. Most people vote with their wallet and those are the issues of concern at this point.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Resurrection

If you aren't comfortable with being associated with hillbillies don't associate with hillbillies.

It's as if the phrase "guilt by association" has no meaning to you at all. If we somehow manage to find, somewhere, a Winnipeg Jets fan who's a criminal, how will you possibly defend yourself?

[Flash Walken]

To woo the anti-establishment Wildrose members who originally broke away from the squishier PCs, Kenney stayed deliberately vague in most policy areas, and promised to let the membership devise the party’s stances. Wildrosers had a history of refusing to moderate, but Kenney learned political leadership at the feet of fellow social conservative Stephen Harper, who excelled at letting certain elements hijack the party agenda for strategic advantage. There’s also the principle Kenney will inherit from the former Alberta PCs—power and retention of power as the key organizing principles. They know this the so-con stuff is Kenney’s weakness, and the success-minded pragmatists will bid to limit Notley’s ability to exploit it.

Kenney’s United Conservatives must also enter 2019 with some sort of coherent environmental policy to underpin the new leader’s pledge to make his first government bill a repeal of Notley’s carbon tax. While axing a tax on the fuel Albertans produce is popular, much of the energy sector appears reasonably happy a provincial government is doing things to erase Alberta’s old image as an environmental laggard; last month, oil sands heavyweights Suncor and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. talked up Alberta’s new environmental efforts to European investors, and their executives joined Notley on stage when the climate change plan and carbon tax were first announced.

When Maclean’s asked Kenney before the leadership vote about a carbon policy that these industry leaders may now view as something that must be replaced if it’s repealed, he did something aspiring conservative premiers seldom do in Alberta: he took a shot at the corporate titans. “I don’t think energy execs are very good at playing politics. They’re technical people, engineers, geologists, and finance people, and they’ve tended to get all of this wrong,” he said.

“It’s not about reducing emissions on upstream production. It’s about making grandma pay more to heat her home,” he said. “This is why the energy companies are for it—it doesn’t add significantly to their bottom line; it imposes the cost downstream.”

Since Notley’s own opposition days of painting Alberta’s oft-hallowed “job creators” as fat-cat corporate barons, she’s learned to work with the big companies. While Kenney doesn’t exactly have to pivot to convince people he’s business-friendly, he will likely have to make efforts to assure an oilpatch that likes regulatory consistency that he won’t whipsaw them back into a rules-lite climate regime and pitched confrontation with Trudeau’s mandate for all provinces to tax carbon (a tussle which Kenney has promised to conservative voters).

Kenney faces another potential liability—that, as unpopular as the Notley NDP is, voters also don’t want a swift return to the arrogance and entitlement of the old Alberta Tory regime. In an interview, he recalled an elderly woman cautioning him at a recent town hall: “‘Jason, I want to vote for you, but I’m still skeptical.’ And it’s not just coming from cranky former Wildrosers; it comes from all corners,” Kenney said.

There’s a throng of former Tory MLAs and cabinet ministers who backed Kenney in hopes of getting back on their familiar gravy train, and while the new leader will want some experienced hands on his team, an abundance of them may prove problematic. Kenney wants to put a new face on the old inevitability of Conservative victory in Alberta. He has 18 months to either seal it or blow it.

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/jaso...st-of-alberta/

[the_only_turek_fan]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

The ideal of course, would be a Premier whose views aligned with mine on every single issue - from economics, to education, to spending, to social values, to religious freedoms, to a vision for the future.

Unfortunately, in my life time, I have had very little luck in finding such a politician to hitch my wagon to. Which means compromise and choice.

And if that choice comes down to selecting someone whose economic and spending views I can't support (which impacts my province daily and significantly), or someone whose religious and personal views I loath (but they have no intention of acting on those views), then for me, it is a pretty easy choice.

Post of the year.

[Flash Walken]

Is there any evidence, other than playing for the blue team, that Kenney will be an effective steward of the economy?

He's been painfully shy about talking policy specifics and the things he has talked about like equalization payments and letting the western bastards freeze in the dark strike me as being painfully ignorant about economics.

As far as I know he's promised to balance the budget within 3 years, but neither him nor Jean seem to want to volunteer any way for that to be achievable.

Is cutting 10 billion dollars out of the provinces' spending really 'fiscally responsible' or is it pennywise and pound foolish?

Seems like a lot of smoke and mirrors.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

I think it also applies to "progressives" who engage in gutter politics because the end justifies the means in their minds.

It doesn’t, just so you’re aware.

[killer_carlson]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

It doesn’t, just so you’re aware.

oh, ok.

What term should I use to describe left wing trolls who engage in the exact type of gutter politics that they decry the right for doing?

Because the NDP just unleashed a pile of it onto social media and it needs to be called out for exactly what it is.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

oh, ok.

What term should I use to describe left wing trolls who engage in the exact type of gutter politics that they decry the right for doing?

Because the NDP just unleashed a pile of it onto social media and it needs to be called out for exactly what it is.

I don’t know, left wing trolls? Hypocrites?

I don’t think there’s a buzzword for it. That just seems like politics.