WAP closes gap on PC's in a big way...6% difference now

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I am a card carrying PC member. What does the WRA offer me other than a change in Premier? How is it different? Is anything essentially the same? How can my lazy butt get a membership without driving to some office in -20 weather?

http://www.wildrosealliance.ca/join

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I am a card carrying PC member. What does the WRA offer me other than a change in Premier? How is it different? Is anything essentially the same? How can my lazy butt get a membership without driving to some office in -20 weather?

I would argue that ideologically as per what would end up on party literature it's not a leaps and bounds difference. However what's happend with the PCs since Ralph won in 1993 is that they have been accustomed to power and with that the party has been used by people with more ambition than brains or ability as a vehicle for accomplishing power. Look no further than our current cabinet ministers and premier. These are people who are hangers on who based on a lot of their resumes would have a hard time making more money or attaining any more influence anywhere else.

Another arguement for voting WRA is provided by the answer to this question: what kind of people do you think ambitious idiots hire to work in the civil service underneath them? Who do those people in turn hire underneath them? We've had years of this process. Years of rot, years of shear incompetence. If anything else a change in government would bring back accountability in governing our province.

To the Liberals credit they have made these arguements time and time again, but always seemed to fail on account of the fact that even on their best day their ideology doesn't mesh with enough Albertans to get elected. With the WRA you can vote for people who share your ideology, but because there is no certainty of winning, are not in it for the money, power, etc.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I am a card carrying PC member. What does the WRA offer me other than a change in Premier? How is it different? Is anything essentially the same? How can my lazy butt get a membership without driving to some office in -20 weather?

How about accountibility? A party in which membership means something? You can actually help to propose policies with us and they will be listened to and discussed. Shocking, eh?

Meaningful health care reform, democratic reforms, etc. We have a LOT of solid ideas and we're working on more; putting some meat on them if you will. Participating in our AGM will give you a chance to have your voice heard as well.

Take a peek at our policies and constitution and you'll see how we're different.

http://wildrosealliance.ca/our-policies

http://wildrosealliance.ca/about/our-constitution

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Oh come now, IFF. We both know you are smarter than that. Nobody said anything about disregarding the last 50 years, but it remains convenient that you chose to disregard the first 50 years.



As you allude to later, experience and competence are not synonyms. Ed Stelmach and Rob Anders are experienced politicians. How many here do you think would consider either of them competent?



In the end, I think you are both right, just arguing from different angles. Alberta is a province ruled by dynasties, but when it decides to change, it changes in a big hurry, and it doesn't much care how much political experience the MLAs it elects have.

Well, I do think that the last 50 years are more important in terms of identifying voter tendencies than the 50 years before that. But... as you suggest, we really don't disagree that much, apart from what we may call a semantic difference between individual experience and "party" experience. My view of it is that since the 1960s, Alberta has never elected a premier who had not been an MLA first.

And that doesn't mean it won't happen now--just that it hasn't happened before. If unprecedented things never happened, we wouldn't have a word for them.