Postscript: Today the same media who commissioned polls with a 100% failure rate are busy explaining the motivations of 952,000 Alberta voters without asking so much as a single one.
Postscript: Today the same media who commissioned polls with a 100% failure rate are busy explaining the motivations of 952,000 Alberta voters without asking so much as a single one.
“The only poll that counts is the one on election day.” We should remind ourselves of that next time. Sigh.
From a colleague this morning came something like this: I wanted a WR win. 308.com had them up 20 points in my riding. I thought it would be a shoo-in so I didn’t go vote (PC candidate won by 15 points in the end).
I was surprised to hear that turnout was not great in this election. Did many stay at home to watch TV instead because the pollster story was WR landslide?
I think Smith nailed it in her speech last night. Voters weren’t ready to trust the WRP. I don’t buy the idea that conservatives have to jettison every conservative idea in order to be electable. Hudak is showing us how well that works.
Why would anyone stay home on election day? It’s a completely stupid and selfish ass hat thing to do. I’ve got no respect for people who don’t vote.
Shocked to see the results coming in last night. The fact that the polls were off by such an extent should not have surprised I guess as they were with the federal election as forecasts of a Libel minority were publicised.
The bigger issue appears to be the divide between a conservative WRP in the south and a much more left wing urban vote. Has all the new migration into AB shifted the culture that much?
Obviously the oil patch hadn’t lost faith with the PCs as many pundits had suggested. WRP as opposition can force the PCs to smarten up and they can use the time to continue their riding organization development.
I just hope the PC insiders who were whispering mutiny in earlier articles meant it. One thing the Alberta PCs have perfected is the art of lynching leaders they don’t like…
Forgive me the sententious moralising but I can’t resist: elections are like wars; they are unpredictable, and can take strange directions.
I don’t vote if I dont like my option.
But to take for granted your candi will win because of a poll is just dumb.
ct, shortly after Ed Stelmach announced the new royalty structure was the Oilmen’s Convention in Edmonton…everyone came out of there swearing Stelmach was “going down”. And he got the biggest or one of the biggest majorities in Alberta history, I do believe.
So much for those who live in the world of words and theories.
Rudy, that’s what happens when you stay home.
John, it’s not moralizing. It’s truth. Elections, and what happens in them, matters a lot.
Nold, you are exactly right. There was a last minute switch by a lot of voters based on last-week gaffes by WR. Voters are always very nervous about turning over power to an entirely new party with no track record. They expect the party to filter out the obvious mavericks, and there were a few who made some very regrettable statements in the last week or so. The “gays will burn in Hell” statement was probably the single most damaging.
Much griping about polls here. David Peterson in Ontario had strong poll support going into the last weeks of the 1990 Ontario election. Turned out the support was a mile wide and an inch deep, and it took very little for the voters to look elsewhere. WR had the same thing happened last night. Opinion was very favourable up to the last minute.
Winning elections means party discipline, and the WR just doesn’t have that yet. But they will.
CT, you are right. This is going to be a very different legislature. And over the next four years the WR is going to get toughened up a lot by the demands of the legislature. The government will be facing opposition from the right, not the left. That’s something they’ve never had to deal with before, and it’s going to hurt. A lot.
Party was too new, the grievances were too new. Same thing happened with Harper. They will win next time. Things need some time to gestate.
we were all fooled by ourselves , just met my brother in law in the lobby , I said bit of a surprise last night , he said no not really , he said when he got to his ballot , he thought, naw , no burning lake of fire stuff for me , and went with the devil he knew. he figures lots did that
so I will go to my Indian hitchhiking analogy ,
there is an Indian hitchhiking on the highway , he stands there all dirty for hours and no one picks him up, finally another car of first nations picks him up , and he thinks from his past experiences , its always like that , so his statistics say only Indians are on this road,
so us Ultra right conservatives do tend to stick with our own and only listen to our own.
I lived in the constituency of Redwater for an election back in about 1978. because of the locals there , I was convinced we were about to get a conservative minority at best and possibly even a NDP minority. ends up that riding went Dips but it was a conservative landslide. so I realized my referance point was flawed. Redwater is still that way , Stelmach is from around there , though the boundaries and name has changed.
Repost: There are a few westerners that owe Ontario conservatives an apology.
What happened to Wildrose yesterday is the same media driven nightmare we’ve endured since Mike Harris.
The vitriol spewed at Ontario by many here during this campaign was beyond the pale.
Should Ontario conservatives start laughing at Alberta like you so viciously snickered at us?
Welcome to our nightmare, we’ll try to show more class than we ever received.
Now..back to work for all conservatives.
The title of the thread should be “post mortem”.
Last night Alberta sealed it’s fate by electing a UN-connected globalist who will dutifully carry out Agenda 21’s attack on private land ownership, civilian firearms, resouce micro management and taxing and driving the cost of energy out of reach of the consumer. Small producers beware you are the canaries in the coal mine.
Bravo Calgary – you’ve proven that in one generation you went from stanch defender’s of independence and freedom to lobotomized votrs who can’t tall a Conservative from a commie.
RIP Alberta advantage.
Prepare for the AB diaspora to Sask.
The pollsters – all of them – whether aggregated or not -relied on land line calls to gauge voter sentiment. As a significant number of Albertans now have only cell phones with unpublished numbers – (particularly recent immigrants) – the poll results were skewed by flawed methodology and thus grossly inaccurate.
The good news is vote-splitting among conservative-minded voters did not happen.
Libs and NDP won combined 10 seats last election, nine this time around.
PC and Wildrose took 80% of combined vote.
Redford’s feet will be held to the fire with a libertarian official opposition.
That in itself, keeping her ego in check, should be better than an opposition that forces Redford further left.
Impressed with Danielle Smith’s positive message.
Totally unimpressed that Redford did not mention any of the other leaders by name. Every other leader congratulated the other leaders.
to mention migrant workers In “the patch” are rumoured to be 70% newfie’s. I’ve worked there so can attest to some veracity of said rumour.
Aprox. 2 ON 1 PQ 17 NewFiE and 1 AB at camp I worked.
Camp Danny and not camp Dani. Why I probably won’t be going back to “the patch”. Too many dambd Newfies!
I feel sorry for Alberta this morning. They had a chance to show the “elites” they were fed up with the nanny state, but either chose not to vote or chose the “safe” route of no change for now. On the other hand you could call WR results a break through. Hopefully the premier will acknowledge the results and shift back to the right but I doubt it. Well lots of room here in BC for all disaffected conservatives and we can save this place from the dipper hoards.
cgh >
Bingo. Conservative Albertan’s are in much better shape this morning than they were a week ago.
The Progressives in the PC’s lost big ground and will have their feet held to the fire, no more free lunches. No need to discuss the Liberals and NDP they don’t even rank.
This was a victory, not a defeat; it only feels like defeat to many because of the faulty polls giving grossly unrealistic expectations. I believe the polls were intentionally manipulated to do exactly what apparently has happened, disillusion conservative voters about their actual success.
Woke up this morning and checked SDA first thing for the news, very disappointed to see Wild Rose didn’t win.
Utter fail by polsters is obvious.
This is the same result we saw here in Ontario with the PCs vs. the Liberals last year, but with much less excuse. McGuinty seemed toast, Hudak ran a CRAP campaign and the Libs eked out a minority with some Dipper gains. Danielle Smith ran a great campaign by contrast, but the media managed to make it all about her. I couldn’t name another WRP candidate, so they succeeded.
It occurs to me that Conservatism is a fairly hard sell in certain circles. People like their welfare, their free stuff, they like whinging to Big Brother to get what they want. Its one-stop-shopping really, isn’t it? We have to find a way to pop that anti-reality bubble and get those people noticing the water they’re getting slowly boiled in.
Another thing is that people in Canada generally do not like “Social Conservatives” as they have allowed themselves to be defined by the media. The prevailing opinion, which I share, is that purely moral and religious issues are not properly part of government. They can inform policy, but not -be- policy. (Its why I don’t like Muslims in government too. I ain’t going to take it from them, not likely to take it from Christians either.) So when people are running for office, its fine to be as religious as you want, but nobody wants to -hear- about it. Do what you gotta do, but don’t imagine piety is going to get you points with everybody.
Another item, PROPAGANDA WORKS. The media shapes the conversation still, and much as that sucks it has to be dealt with. Conservatism is operating in a hostile and corrosive environment, get your big kid pants on and lace up the steel toed boots.
So we have some serious freakin’ work to do in this country if we want to sell our less-government/lower-taxes ideas in the open market, and roll back the 70 years of Liberal tomfoolery.
On the positive side, the Dippers and Liberals got reduced and Wild Rose won many seats. So less than we hoped but much better than last time.
Lots of people afraid of the burning lake of fire. Interesting.
No worries, though, there will be a 1000 years of teaching before anyone goes in it. Be a little harder, though. No salvation, actions will count.
God loves all His people.
Why would anyone stay home on election day? It’s a completely stupid and selfish ass hat thing to do. I’ve got no respect for people who don’t vote.
Posted by: james at April 24, 2012 10:53 AM
James some don’t vote because they believe in freedom and do not want to participate in a sham that forces others to live by their dictates. Voting is a means of saying that you are willing to force others to do as your party says at (implied) gun point. Some would see it as limiting other’s freedoms just as if the other party won it is freedom limiting to self.
The best way to ensure a small c conservative election is have a media kristlanacht at the beginning of the campaign….
Alberta spends more per capita than any other province. Could it be that the vast majority of voters there are used to free stuff and wouldn’t want to see that changed. Deep down, most voters are rather shallow. The Liberals, oops, I mean PCs, have the electorate where they want them.
Well Grey Lady, I guess some people just don’t understand the concept of representative democracy. It’s truly the opposite of what you describe. Freedom is not achieved by being complacent, it is snatched away from you by those who take advantage of it.
It’s a real slow march. You see it mostly in municipal politics. Small pet projects by various totalitarians. In my city overnight it’s now illegal to idle your car for more than 3 minutes with a $100 fine. In 3 years food scraps in your garbage will do the same. Voter turnout in municipal elections continue to plummet.
With the parliamentry system in place, staying home because you don’t like your choice is non optional. Take one for the team fer chrissakes. The only way to be absolutely certain of NOT winning the lottery is to NOT buy a ticket.
Today the Halifax Herald’s headline read: “Alberta keeps Tories”. The object of reporting is to answer the questions: who, what, why, when, where and how. I find it fascinating that your front page story could carry this headline without once mentioning the actual result of the election’s seat count.
Since you didn’t publish the results, here they are: PC – 61; Wild Rose – 17; Lib – 5; NDP – 4 seats. Now, was that so hard?
I suppose it is if, like the majority of the MSM and so-called professional pollsters, you have been boldly predicting the defeat of the PCs in Alberta for the past six weeks.
I know it is fashionable for most MSM organizations to be automatically opposed – almost a knee-jerk reaction – to anything Conservative, but this dislike for Conservatives should not include beating the drum in active support for anyone who might displace them and generating false reports of projected results. If you’re really telling the whole truth, you’d have reported that the Conservatives won 61 seats and a more right-wing Conservative party won 17 seats. So, what really happened was that Alberta remains pretty much the way it was before the election was called.
Do what you gotta do, but don’t imagine piety is going to get you points with everybody.
Nope, it sure won’t. More hated, if anything. Christians know that only too well. But that’s okay, still not equivalent to being crucified or thrown to the lions.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…/sarc
Today the Halifax Herald’s headline read: “Alberta keeps Tories”. The object of reporting is to answer the questions: who, what, why, when, where and how. I find it fascinating that your front page story could carry this headline without once mentioning the actual result of the election’s seat count.
Since you didn’t publish the results, here they are: PC – 61; Wild Rose – 17; Lib – 5; NDP – 4 seats. Now, was that so hard?
I suppose it is if, like the majority of the MSM and so-called professional pollsters, you have been boldly predicting the defeat of the PCs in Alberta for the past six weeks.
I know it is fashionable for most MSM organizations to be automatically opposed – almost a knee-jerk reaction – to anything Conservative, but this dislike for Conservatives should not include beating the drum in active support for anyone who might displace them and generating false reports of projected results.
You know, I was hopefully believing the polls, but this result fairly accurately reflects what my team’s door knockers were hearing on the doorsteps the last week: That Wildrose was a bunch of intolerant bigots. How do you explain homosexual campaign volunteers being thrown off people’s property and accused of being homophobic and unable to get a word in edgewise? I know I was sworn at and had the door slammed in my face many times the last week, not before.
The PCs “intolerance gambit” worked. My faith in democracy and people is reduced a little for it, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
Danielle Simth and the Wildrose Party should take heart from the election results.
They are now positioned to highlight RED Toryism at its worst to conservative Albertans, until the new term ends.
Unbridled Redford crypto-socialism about to deconstruct with teat sucking entitlements, within a resource wealthy province.
And insofar as the pollsters were concerned with their polling, “chicken bone deviners” would have been more accurate.
Certainly many SDA readers were taken in by the pollsters totally unreliable output.
I am profoundly disappointed this morning. I shouldn’t be surpised though as Global, CTV and CBC did everything, short of painting fangs and a pointy tail on Smith, to get nanny redford electd. The sad thing is, from the province that brought in so many reform members, that so many bought it.
So now Redford has to balance the budget and payoff the teachers who bought all those party memberships so they could vote her into leadership.
Reminds me of Dulton in Ontario, same problem, same group of silly servants who figure they have hit get rich heaven by owning a politician.
Right on that was an excellent result last night!!!
Boo hoo. You lost. Suck it up.
How do you explain homosexual campaign volunteers being thrown off people’s property and accused of being homophobic and unable to get a word in edgewise? I know I was sworn at and had the door slammed in my face many times the last week, not before.
I can explain it, propaganda at the schools and brought home. I know that for a fact. Our tax dollars at work…
as always, this election proved the old adage that “fear works” – we voted, worked for the WRP, but the media party concentration on old quotes and out of context blather, struck fear into the average voter’s hearts – what I fear, is what comes next, and what the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald will do to cover it up
Curious to watch CBC and CTV coverage.
Apart from being slightly nauseated, maybe just me, but they seemed pleased for what were called “Tories” by some persons elsewhere.
I’m beginning to realise there are still too many lemmings out there that allow MSM to tell them what to think.
Are we in a conservative bubble here at SDA?
Right on glad to see WR and their lemmings go down.
“as always, this election proved the old adage that “fear works” ”
——————–
Like how Bush won in 04? Or the fed Cons with the coalition scare? Carry on folks, just a kettle calling a pot black.
Ha’vad trained lawyer the mayor of Calgary;
Ha’vad trained nurse running the Province of Alberta;
Ha’vad prof sitting on the Cherry Blossom Throne;
What could possibly go wrong?
(Side note: Calgary’s Mayor and City Counsel have just hired a very controversial Mass-Transit city planner from Maryland to get all you Progs riding the bus in Calgary: Story http://www.qr77.com/News/Local/Story.aspx?ID=1691398)
I was profoundly disappointed when I saw the poll last night at which point it was PC-61, WR-19,had set my hopes way too high.
Instead of going with my usual cynicism,I allowed my wishful thinking to take over my emotions and was as heartbroken as a teenybopper when her favoutite teen idol gets married.
At least now we BC’ers won’t have to endure “Left Coast” remarks from smug Albertans anymore, we’re ALL in the same boat now!
I’ll have to E-mail Premier Red Ali and suggest she follow our lead with shooting galleries, free booze for alcoholics,and chickens in every urban back yard.
Oh yeah, and display a bit of cleavage too,Ali, it works here.
bluetech: “Are we in a conservative bubble here at SDA?”
Bubble, echo chamber, whichever you prefer.
And as long as you keep insisting — simplistically, condescendingly, conspiratorially — that anyone not inside your bubble/echo chamber is a “lemming” who “allows the MSM to tell them what to think”, you’ll never see the light.
Well now Alberta has a governing party that is hostile to federal Conservative party, anti-oilsands and will run a deficit budget again.
PC insiders are planning on stabbing Redfrod on the back at the first oportunity while at the same time we are stuck with our oil production being landlocked.
Every downturn in the economy will, fortunatly, be blamed on Redfrod. I can not see the PC’s winning an election in 4 years.
Yup. The morons at the Glob and snail are crowing about their gal and wagging their fingers at the rest of us.
We lost because we are ignorant rednecks, blah blah blah…racists…blah blah blah…homophobes..blah blah blah.
I told them we lost because Allison bought alot of stupid people’s votes with their own money…and it didn’t go over all that well.
Now we have a UN human rights lawyer in control of the oilpatch, and a .05 legal limit. I’m expecting carbon taxes to appear sooner rather than later. Good grief, what a freaking mess.
@ Dan the Man:
Just like the federal LIEberals with their ridiculous ‘soldier in the streets with guns, in your cities, in Canada’ drivel?
Oh please…that was almost as good as Redford’s zinger of her fear of Charter conscience rights.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
The PC’s lost about 50% of their traditional support last night.
By next election they’ll lose another 50%.
About 35% of the PC’s popular vote last night was bled off the Liberals.
Without this Liberal shift, the PC’s would have garnered about 30% of the popular vote.
Patience is a virtue.
As for the talk about the UN’s Agenda 21, 99.99% of the population of Alberta has no clue what Agenda 21 is. Unfortunately, they are now going to experience more and more of it for the next 4 plus years. They need to be educated. Offhand mentions of it are not enough. They need to know that their cities have signed up for it without their knowledge via a group called the ICLEI. Visit their website and you can see a list of the municipalities that have signed on. Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer are on their members list.
http://www.iclei.org/index.php
“ICLEI was founded in 1990 as the ‘International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives’. The Council was established when more than 200 local governments from 43 countries convened at our inaugural conference, the World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future, at the United Nations in New York.”
They claim to have no connection to the UN or the UN’s Agenda 21.
They seem honest, so I’ll have to take their word for it. /sarc.
After all, they are funded by the European Union.
Visit their FAQ page to find out more.