Calgary-Lougheed, the little byelection with huge impact
Don Braid, Calgary Herald
The Calgary-Lougheed byelection set for Thursday looks like a typical Jason Kenney political lab, sterilized and sealed, the ideal test run of the UCP leader’s master plan for Canada.
There he is, the sole conservative candidate with an audience. The options to the right of him (Canada Advantage, Reform Party of Canada, the inevitably appalling Larry Heather) are electorally meaningless.
Meanwhile, the centre-left is splitting itself between the NDP candidate, Phillip van der Merwe, and Liberal Leader David Khan, whose campaign is surprisingly energetic and effective.
For the first time in an actual vote for a legislature seat, the anti-Kenney forces are now in the same weak position as Wildrose and the Progressive Conservatives were before the 2015 election.
As they start to feed on each other, they weaken their ability to beat the ideological opponent.
The earlier conservative split allowed Rachel Notley and the NDP to come out of nowhere to win. Kenney today is far better known, and infinitely more prepared, than Notley was in the early stages of that campaign.
The conventional wisdom is that this makes Kenney unbeatable, first on Thursday, and in any other vote before he glides to the premier’s office in the 2019 general election.
But it’s a long run to spring of 2019. Much can change.
Former premier Jim Prentice won four byelections on Oct. 27, 2014. In December, he thought he’d co-opted Wildrose with floor-crossings. PCs were euphoric. Only five months later they lost the election.
The case isn’t parallel, obviously, but it shows the danger of assuming too much.
Advance polling in Calgary-Lougheed indicates high interest. One-third more ballots were cast than in the 2015 advance vote. And that was an emotional general election about change.
All this would seem to favour Kenney, but the New Democrats still hope to give him a scare.
full story at http://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/braid-calgary-lougheed-a-little-byelection-with-a-huge-impact
Categorised in: Canadian News