Well, the big news of the past week appears to be the stimulus cheques with Tory logos plastered all over them. Given what we know of Harper and the way the stimulus funds have been spent, this shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone.

Back in Alberta…

Danielle Smith took the Wildrose Alliance leadership race 6,295 to 1,905. With the spoiled ballots, that means there were about 8,300 votes cast, more than the 4,500 who voted in the ALP leadership race last year, but a far cry from the close to 100,000 who voted in the 2006 PC leadership race. Mind you, PC leadership races are the only time Albertans actually get to vote for a Premier, so the interest in that race is understandable.

As I wrote last month, the challenge for Smith becomes one of building up credibility. Smith’s credibility won’t be a problem – despite not having a day of elected political experience, she’s already a more credible Premier than Ed Stelmach. The real challenge will be making the Wildrose Alliance credible. Sure, defections of PC MLAs will help, but it’s really all about finding credible candidates and quieting the crazies.

For all intents in purposes, Alberta has its own version of Mario Dumont and the ADQ…and we all know how that ended.