Quote:
Originally Posted by Corndogger
The NDP winning in AB in 2015 was a protest vote gone wrong. People wanted to punish the PCs, the media did a great hatchet job on the WRP, and Rachel looked good in the one debate they had. Too many people viewed Rachel as a nice person which I'm sure she is but forgot to factor in that the rest of the party and their supporters had no government experience and a scary agenda that few would support if we got to vote on it.
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Yeah. Followed the election closely. The Liberals were leaderless, the PC/WR fiasco rubbed folk the wrong way with the WR also essentially leaderless, while Notley had previously replaced Brian Mason as NDP leader.
And Prentice's missteps during the leadership debate (along with Notley's showing) essentially sealed the deal for Notley. NDP candidates were basically a ragtag of social activists, union activists, and enviro activists.
To top it off, the AB NDP gov't imported quite a few BC NDP stalwarts into senior positions, who have been long known in BC as political incompetents. To wit:
1. Brian Topp - 2013 BC NDP campaign manager - now Notley's chief of staff;
2. Jim Rutkowski - former BC NDP leader Carole James former chief of staff - now senior advisor to Notley;
3. John Heaney - current BC NDP leader John Horgan's former chief of staff - now AB deputy minister of policy and planning;
4. Marcella Munroe - BC NDP strategist - now heads Calgary gov't communications bureau;
5. Parm Kahlon - former executive assistant to several BC NDP MLAs - Notley's executive assistant;
6. Matt Hannah - formerly BC NDP - now AB Gov't issues management;
7. Benjamin Alldritt - former communications officer with BC NDP caucus - now AB Gov't issues management;
I can go on and on.
In any event, once the AB NDP were elected, I gave them 1 1/2 years at most before they would collapse in public opinion into 3rd place. Same scenario played out in BC with the election of the BC NDP back in 1991. Same social engineering going on in AB as in BC back in 1991/1992. Déjà vu. Within 1 1/2 years of election, in 1993 the BC NDP popular support collapsed into 3rd place (after the BC Liberals and BC Reform Party - 1993 Mustel polls [also CATI pollster]).
Within 1 1/2 years, the NDP brand in BC had become so badly damaged that the federal NDP vote/seats had also collapsed in BC during the 1993 fed election and thereafter.
On that note, a fed by-election was held yesterday in the AB riding of Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner - always a right-wing seat federally. Also of note is that the AB NDP won one of the underlying provincial seats in May, 2015 - Medicine Hat.
For a by-election, the turnout was relatively high at 44.54%. More importantly, the NDP vote completely collapsed as it is apparent the NDP brand in AB is also now fatally damaged:
CPC: 69.9%
Liberal: 25.6%
CHP: 2%
NDP: 1%
Libertarian: 0.8%
Rhinoceros: 0.6%
http://enr.elections.ca/ElectoralDistricts.aspx?lang=e