Klein’s dawdling has left the PC party vulnerable
Premier Ralph Klein’s promised departure from the provincial leadership has become a debacle, just as he has increasingly become a caricature of himself.
These might be ugly assessments, but they are true.
Klein should have quit sometime after the 2001 election when he was still at the top of his popularity and gone out as a hero.
Instead, he stayed for another round and in 2004 saw his Progressive Conservatives lose a staggering 200,000 votes and hand three Calgary seats over to a trio of uninspiring Liberals.
Even that wasn’t enough for him to get the message his time was over.
He proceeded to stumble around, pulling policies out of the air, and being grimly determined to hold on for as long as he could.
In “Applause fades” (Feb. 19) I compared him to the Norma Desmond of Alberta politics—the faded movie actress in the classic Sunset Boulevard, who didn’t know her fans had deserted her and predicted unless he got out soon he would take the party down with him.
Cruelly, I’ve often described the ego-ridden Joe Clark in the same way, which certainly adds insult to injury to Klein, for, until perhaps three or four years ago our premier was an accomplished politician with an unblemished record, while Clark was nothing but an incompetent bungler who saw himself in grandiose roles.
The real breaking point with Klein for most of us true Conservatives was the 2004 federal election campaign.
With Stephen Harper ahead of Paul Martin’s Liberals in Ontario, Klein made his comments about radical health-care reform and sabotaged Harper’s campaign.
Klein handed Martin everything he needed to paint the Conservative leader as having that infamous “hidden agenda” and being devious.
For this, Klein can never be forgiven, not even with Harper now prime minister.
Incidentally, there are suspicions Klein didn’t make those comments with a slip of the tongue, but knew exactly what he was saying and what the dire result would be.
Now we have this “long goodbye” in which, OK, he won’t hang on until late 2007 but will likely be gone late this year.
What a charade.
Sometime in September he’ll send a letter to the party hierarchy asking them to start scheduling a leadership convention.
Why not send the letter now?
It would be easy to set a date for a convention in, say, July, and quite manageable.
For all we know, the convention might not be held until early next year.
It’s just a shambles.
Klein actually may well take this party down with him.
Let’s hope he doesn’t hand it over to the Liberals—a ghastly thought, for it would lead to the ruination of our province—but how might the current scenario play out?
Well, former provincial treasurer Jim Dinning is surely still the frontrunner, though I’m told MLA Ted Morton is showing surprising strength and former economic development minister Mark Norris is, too.
The rest of the PC leadership hopefuls are out of the game before it even starts. Thankfully—they’re a dim-looking lot.
Yet let’s throw a curve—Preston Manning should surely be in the race, but not for the PC leadership.
He should make a pitch for the Alberta Alliance top job.
In 2004, the Alliance came from nowhere to win 9% of the vote, and had someone with a higher and more acceptable profile than Randy Thorsteinson been the leader it would have done even better.
Current leader Paul Hinman might easily be persuaded to step aside.
Right now, there are moves under way to have right-wing fringe parties such as Social Credit merge with the Alliance to have a solid and united Conservative alternative to the PCs.
With Manning at the Alliance’s helm, the party would have all the legitimacy it needed and a star candidate.
Those now dissatisfied with the PCs would have a real home to go to.
Manning would surely be formidable—and likely unbeatable. Remember, in just 10 years he built the Reform party from a kitchen-table discussion group to being the second largest political political party in the country and the official Opposition in the House of Commons.
As in the past, Alberta could be in for a shattering change in its governing party.
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