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Mulcair Triumphs
Thomas Mulcair is the second ever NDP leader of the opposition after a four ballot victory yesterday morning…and afternoon…and evening. Although Brian Topp was seen as the establishment candidate and was hyped as the early favourite, we shouldn’t be surprised that Mulcair came out on top. Since his Outremont by election win in 2007, everyone […]
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Final NDP Power Rankings
The NDP crowns its next leader tomorrow, and the best we can do at this point is narrow the field down to 5 possible winners. That’s a far cry from September when the Brian Topp juggernaut was described as Martinesque. I made my “secret Liberal memo” endorsements earlier this month, and my opinion hasn’t changed […]
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Redford in Dire Straits Over Money for Nothing Controversy
In 1993, the Alberta PCs were on the ropes, and many felt Lawrence Decore would end their 22 year reign in power. When the issue of MLA pensions bubbled to the surface, their newly elected leader Ralph Klein walked into caucus, laid down the law, and retroactively scrapped the gold-plated pension plan. He may not […]
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This Week in Alberta – The Wheels on the Bus
With an Alberta election call possible as soon as next week, the province is gearing up for the campaign. Of course, rather than talk of scandals or policies, most of the attention this week was on the Wildrose Party’s unfortunately designed campaign bus wrap. Which prompted this tongue and cheek response:
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New Tory Ad Blitz
The Tories have launched a pair of ads which they assure us will get plenty of air time. That’s probably true since, after all, they’ve got heaps of money and no election to spend it on. Garnering the most media attention has been the following Bob Rae attack ad: The content is about what you’d […]
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Meanwhile, South of the Border
Despite a pair of humiliating set-backs in Alabama and Mississippi last week, Mitt Romney is still on course to stumble over the finish line in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Despite an overwhelming desire to find anyone else up to the job, the Anybody But Romney options have imploded one by one – […]
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NDP Leadership Power Rankings
Last month I looked at how NDP leadership candidates stacked up on various metrics, in a mostly futile attempt to handicap the race. With the Dippers’ vote a week away, here are the updated Power Rankings (click to view): MPs: Despite losing an MP to Brian Topp this week, Mulcair continues to dominate with 43 […]
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Alberta Poll Soup
The expectation in Alberta is that Alison Redford’s first budget will pass by March 21, with the writ dropped March 26 for an April 23 vote. As for the expected outcome, the polls are predicting…well…who knows? Five companies (ThinkHQ, Forum, ROI, Abacus, Leger) have released polls in 2012, with the following ranges for each party: […]
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Time for a Full Inquiry, for Dean’s Sake
Dean Del Mastro, March 1: “We learned that Joe Volpe paid over $25,000 to Prime Contact, a calling company with offices in North Dakota. These calls were made on behalf of the Liberal party. I see that they used this company quite a bit. It seems that they were robodialing quite a number of people […]
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The First Look at Redford’s Playbook
That sound you hear is the unofficial starting gun on Alberta’s 2012 election, as the PCs launch their first round of negative ads, under the familiar “Danielle Smith: Not Worth the Risk” tagline. The immediate reaction by most has been similar to Don Braid’s: In my prehistoric memory, the Tories haven’t done anything like this […]