Alberta (Canada) UCP leadership race

[adma]

https://mobile.twitter.com/davecournoyer/status/1558090017070690304
Not worth making a thread over, but just want to bring to attention that nominations for the Alberta Liberal Party elections are closing in about two hours, and they have got literally no candidates.

I don't get why the Alberta Liberals are still limbering along. They're not going to replace the NDP as the main anti-Conservative option, and they're most certainly not going to replace the UCP as the main anti-NDP option. If the idea is to present a solid centrist third party like the Lib Dems to keep both the UCP and NDP in check, wouldn't they be better off merging with the Alberta Party?

That would mean accepting the Alberta Party is centrist.

But...they are? I mean, "centrist" depends on where you believe the centre to be, but in an Alberta split between UCP and NDP, I would think both the AP and ALP would fit into a broadly centrist category. Granted I don't know much about the minor parties in Alberta, is it the case that Liberals and Alberta party have bad blood?

If they're still lingering, it's to keep the party-label generator running just in case opportunity knocks in the future.

[adma]

And notoriously, no opposition party stood down for John Tory when he ran for a byelection seat as Ontario PC leader in 2009--and he lost to the Liberals in what ought to have been a "safe" Tory seat...

[adma]

Interestingly, I remember some people throwing around the possibility that in the 2018 Ontario election, the PCs would win a majority while Ford fails to win Etobicoke North. Ostensibly it made sense, considering the PCs finished third with 23% of the vote in that riding in 2014. But I think anyone who knew anything about Toronto politics understood that there wasn't the slightest flicker of a chance that the people of Etobicoke North would elect someone else when Doug Ford was on the ballot.

Other than those who used projection models in the stupidest way imaginable, I really don't think there were many who were projecting a Ford loss *in tandem with* a PC majority.  More often, it was in tandem w/broader PC squelched hopes, together with how, Doug Ford or no Doug Ford, it's by no stretch of the imagination a "natural" Tory riding, as the continued federal electoral record proves...

[adma]

The point that Danielle Smith hammered repeatedly in her speech last night was "the NDP-Liberal alliance" in Ottawa. I think that that's a really strong line of attack; the federal government is quite unpopular and the federal NDP is committed to never opposing it in any way. Now that the Alberta Liberal Party is truly dead, the NDP is the only party in the province with any connection to the government. The fact that the NDP has been in power already and Rachel Notley is a well-known figure makes this tougher for the UCP than it would be otherwise, but if they manage to pull it off next year I think this will be why.

Shades of how, a generation ago, the campaigning federal Liberals made a point of referring to "the Reform Alliance" and then "the Alliance Conservatives", tarring the primary opposition by association with their "extreme right" predecessors...

[adma]

Interestingly, I remember some people throwing around the possibility that in the 2018 Ontario election, the PCs would win a majority while Ford fails to win Etobicoke North. Ostensibly it made sense, considering the PCs finished third with 23% of the vote in that riding in 2014. But I think anyone who knew anything about Toronto politics understood that there wasn't the slightest flicker of a chance that the people of Etobicoke North would elect someone else when Doug Ford was on the ballot.

Other than those who used projection models in the stupidest way imaginable, I really don't think there were many who were projecting a Ford loss *in tandem with* a PC majority.  More often, it was in tandem w/broader PC squelched hopes, together with how, Doug Ford or no Doug Ford, it's by no stretch of the imagination a "natural" Tory riding, as the continued federal electoral record proves...

I agree that serious analysts weren't predicting a DoFo loss + PC majority situation, but the "people who use projection models in the stupidest way imaginable" make a lot of noise on social media. My point though was that it was the most recent time that I can recall where such predictions were made.

Yeah, just like I've seen some in this forum being led to overestimate the electoral backlash to "draconian" Covid restrictions--largely because of those who, well, make a lot of noise on social media.

Though in this case, I can see it being those on the "flaky left" who were all woe-is-us-we-can't-beat-the-Tories but were seeking *any* reason for hope against the presumed landslide juggernaut.  And the reported prospect of DoFo threatened in his own riding (even if it was more projection-model technicality--not "stupid" in its own right except when taken at face value) resonated as wishful feelgood, sort of like how the Big Lie is to Trump Republicans.

Etobicoke North in general is not a PC friendly riding, Harper failed to win it in 2011 despite winning big in Ontario.  But anyone who follows municipal politics would know Ford family is very popular there so I have often said it will vote Conservative if candidate has surname Ford, otherwise Liberal.

Well, yeah, *Conservative*.  As opposed to Renata Ford bombing for PPC in '19.