Alberta Progressive Conservative Leadership Election - March 18, 2017

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Kenney's path to the hulk's bridge is basically clear. Unite Blue!

From the article: "Meanwhile, the NDP-friendly detractors of Kenney sometimes compare him to Donald Trump—though this is unfair, because Kenney doesn’t engage in demagoguery, nor is he policy-incompetent."

I agree that Kenney is policy competent, but I find him to be every bit as sleazy and every bit as much a demagogue as Trump.

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Whatever you may think of David Climenhaga (I personally think he's fairly honest)
This kind of silent dog-whistling, though, is nothing new for Mr. Kenney. Indeed, it’s among his go-to techniques.

Consider, in the recent past:

His “corrosive” social media misrepresentation of an Islamic religious ceremony.
His accusation that “people like” Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi were “politicizing” the niqab controversy his own party had ginned up for political purposes during the 2015 federal election.
His Tweet suggesting Indigenous people are just “settlers” too.
His characterization of “perfect, unaccented English” as an essential quality of being Canadian.
His catcalls in Parliament mocking the minister of national defence’s manner of speaking by demanding “English-to-English translation.”

http://albertapolitics.ca/2016/06/jason-kenneys-bizarre-brexit-broadsides-explanation-dog-whistle/

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When asked about their preferences for leader of a hypothetical united party, Albertans prefer a generic 'someone else' to both Jason Kenney and Brian Jean

Rachel Notley! 

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In time, yes, unless something unforeseen happens. The general consensus amongst those of us who are fairly highly involved (for example, I sit on the Executive of the PC Youth of Alberta, which gives me access and sometimes voting privileges at the PC Board of Directors) is that we will likely not find a political home in a unified party under Kenney, but in the meantime we don't want to cede control of the PC party that we've all worked to foster and build to his minions. The ominous metaphor that some have used is that we need to stay at the helm of the ship as long as it is afloat, and we need to ensure that lifeboats are ready to take our friends to new political homes when the time comes.

The PC Party's Executive Director resigned yesterday, and has indicated that after a few weeks off, he'll begin his new involvement in the Alberta Party - he's had discussions already about that with Greg Clark. He hopes to pave the way for other disaffected PCs. I also know of at least two Constituency Association Presidents (Edmonton-Centre and West Yellowhead) who have already purchased Alberta Party memberships. Former Edmonton-Castle Downs MLA and Deputy Premier Thomas Lukaszuk has already left the party, as he tweeted a picture of his membership card in the garbage on his way from the convention.

On a related note, I've been hearing murmurs of a "unite-the-centre" meeting in Red Deer that will be occurring soon, and is apparently being planned by former Edmonton Mayor and PC MLA Stephen Mandel, but many details of this are still foggy.

The Alberta New Democrats are the only viable option on the centre.