Well, no, but that’s how Ed Stelmach spins it whenever anyone else makes this suggestion: CALGARY – The Alberta Conservatives will not decide for months on a request from several major oilsands companies to halt development leases in three huge and environmentally sensitive swaths of the oilsands region, Conservative Leader Ed Stelmach said today. The […]

Afghanistan is off the table as an election issue, as the Liberals and Tories agree on a compromise. This is probably a good example of how a minority government can work but it’s probably a better example of how to skillfully make a hot button issue disappear. As for who the skillful one was in […]

…with a very Clarkish 66.9%. Given there was open organizing on both sides, I think 2/3 seems like a big enough show of support to keep him on. I guess the real question now is if everyone gets on board for the next four years or not.

Aha! I knew it! what those West Wing fans stunned by the similarity between the fictitious Matthew Santos and the real-life Barack Obama have not known is that the resemblance is no coincidence. When the West Wing scriptwriters first devised their fictitious presidential candidate in the late summer of 2004, they modelled him in part […]

It’d provide so much blogging material… “I know where I stand. I stand very clear. Environment is critical to us.”-Ed Stelmach, after the debate last night

-Fresh off his quest to end ATM fees, Jack Layton has found a new cause du jour. -Obama makes it 9 in a row with a win in Wisconsin…and I’m gonna assume Hawaii makes it 10 later tonight. -Good policy and good politics out in BC. It’s nice to see some small “c” conservative governments […]

-I thought the same thing when I watched QP yesterday. I’m not sure Jean Lapierre is necessarily the best person to be revealing the inner thoughts of Jean Chretien’s mind. -The Tories have unleashed a new line of attack on Dion, claiming that a Liberal government would plunge the country back into deficit. I think […]

Since I’m not able to help on the ground this campaign, here’s my little bit of virtual door knocking. For any members of the Albertan nation off at school or out of the province on March 3rd, you can still vote by mail in ballot. And, heck, unlike the poor suckers in Alberta, you don’t […]

Say what you will about Stephen Harper (and I’ve said a lot), but he’s nobody’s fool. Two small, but very good, examples of smart messaging: 1. Make it look like Liberals and Tories have come together on Afghanistan, in a bid to take a very problematic issue for him off the table. 2. Lower expectations […]

That was Paul Martin during the 1995 referendum, in an exaggeration that led to his benching for the rest of the campaign. Here’s Ed Stelmach today: The premier countered that adopting the Kyoto accord would cost Alberta 335,000 jobs and increase electrical and heating costs by “100 or 200 times.” Stelmach could not clearly explain […]