They Call Her The Wildrose...

[dexfarkin]

...but her name was Danielle Smith.

A name attached to a recent 39% share in Alberta polls, dwarfing the Tories and Liberals who both sit with 25%. Ed Stelmach is trying desperately to staunch the bloodflow but with an approval rating of just 13%, his hold on the caucus is tentative at best. Remember, this was the party that cut the throat of the still semi-popular Klein at the first sign of weakness.

To understand 13% in Canadian terms? Even after Rae bankrupted Ontario, and then Harris gutted it on the way back out, neither man was lower than 13% approval.

Smith appears to be intelligently approaching the news, by keeping her words limited, and focusing on organizing local ridings and recruiting candidates. Which is her best approach, to let the Tories pull their wounds more open and deeper, while she works to best take advantage of the potential voter largess at the ballot box by fielding as many credible candidates as possible.

Despite their gaudy polling data, the Wildrose Party still only has a single seated member, and their organization is only running a dozen ridings at anything close to the level needed for a successful election challenge. However, behind those shaky elements exists a lot of energy, and more importantly, a strong financial commitment to the idea that the Wildrose Alliance is a credible party in Alberta. If they can recruit decent candidates and concentrate on a core network of seats, and let the rest run as 'flyers' with little support or hope, they can maximize their resources and carve out a comfortable opposition number.

Regardless, the person providing the most boost has been Stelmach, largely strangled by his own party's rhetoric. Stelmach's policies have been fairly reasonable in trying to soften the impact of the recession, but has certainly gone against the grain of the traditional approach of the Alberta Tories. Add on to that his almost net negative stock of charisma, and you have a politician who is unable to convince the citizens that the painful adjustments his programs are causing are necessary to recovery, and as a result, is painted in shades of uncertainty, fickleness, and above all, inauthencity as a leader; the fatal blow in Western politics.