Along with Craig Chandler running as an Independent candidate in Calgary-Egmont, the Chandleristas will be following their glorious leader into the battle for social conservative votes in Calgary...
Jim Blake – Running as a Wildrose Party candidate or as an Independent in the Constituency of Calgary Currie.Merry Christmas, Ed Stelmach?
Sid Helishauer - As an Alberta Alliance Party candidate or an Independent in the Constituency of Airdrie Chestermere.
Harley Shouldice - As an Independent in the Constituency of Calgary North Hill.
David Crutcher – Either as an Alberta Alliance or as an Independent in the Constituency of Calgary Glenmore. David Crutcher will be delivering a message very clearly to the Deputy Premier, Ron Stevens.
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I hear the Liberals still have a few nominations open...
... but I guess these guys are not THAT crazy.
"I hear the Liberals still have a few nominations open..."
No, they are actually smarter than that. They want to hurt Ed Stelmach and they can do it by stripping Tory candidates of the right-wing vote in these ridings, all of which the Liberals have a strong base.
What better way to get back at Ed Stelmach then by targeting his candidates in Calgary?
Way to keep flogging a dead horse Dave.
These Chandler folks will get about 5% of the vote at best... not nearly enough for the Liberals to win any extra seats thanks to right wing vote splitting.
It's time Liberals like Dave focus on developing some policies, rather than stealing NDP materials as usual. This time the "Liberal as NDP-lite" crap won't cut it. Oh wait, it never has.
On a non-Chandler note (please! Though I can't resist saying I'd like to see the receipts for that $127K. This is a guy who was holding fundraisers years after the fact for a $5K debt after the Tory leadership.) In other fun news, look s like there's a reason for the inaction in Calgary Montrose:
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=089f157e-525a-4a0f-8e62-3a74dc8256fa&p=1
I'm in Calgary-Fish Creek - how come I didn't get a right wing nut? I want a right wing nut for Christmas and Im going to hold my breath until I get one!
Dave, you have a serious problem with PCs posting anonymously. It's almost like they don't want to be associated with it...
Fran from Medicine Hat remarks: These are early days my friends, and I think we may see that a "Chandler scorned" and his "fellow righteous friends" could out-spend, out-organize (memberships at local churches to protect "Alberta family values"), and hog free publicity by their very presence - lets face it that will equal more that 10% of the vote. When we consider that Ralph was said to equal 1200 votes per consituency, and Stelmach in Calgary will equal a negative 1,000 votes of PCers staying home - these folks could make a big difference in the consituencies that they run in.
David Crutcher recieved 14% of the vote when he ran in Calgary Egmont in the 2004.
If each of these candidates is able to peel off between 10% and 15% of the PCs vote they may be able to cause a few ALP upsets in Calgary ridings.
The X - factor that nobody is talking about (yet), is the Green Party which will be running a full slate of candidates in the next election. Who stands to lose the most votes to the Green Party? It might not be the left wing parties that you're thinking of...
I wasn't thinking of the left wing parties; I was thinking of nobody.
"Ralph was worth X many votes per riding and Ed will cost Y votes per riding".
That's some poor political analysis right there. There is no magic bullet and the change in leadership may have caused a short drop in the Tory fold early on, but that was over a year ago. The Tory base will come out and vote PC, probably more so than ever once they get a full dose of Chandler & crew via the media.
So keep plugging these nutbars if you must Daveberta. You're only doing the PC's a favour.
I'm sorry, they are definately Chandlerites, as in troglodytes, not Chandleristas, as in Sandanistas. Please don't confuse the two, one is a simean, the other a freedom fighter.
"Ralph was worth X many votes per riding and Ed will cost Y votes per riding".
This isn't poor political analysis, it is looking at the popular appeal of the individual leaders and making predictions on that basis. I don't think Ed Stelmach will "cost" votes, but he is most certainly worth less votes on a personal appeal level than Klein was, especially in Calgary. This is where Chandler's group comes in to play. If Chandler and his merry group of socons can siffen off enough votes from the Conservatives in these four Calgary ridings there is a good chance that most or all of them could go Liberal. It really is too early to make bold predictions but these guys are well-funded and organized and can seriously take some right-wing steam out of Stelmach's puttering calgary machine. The Liberals have good candidates and good bases of support in these ridings and it could end up that Calgary will have a little more diverse representation at the end of the next election which wouldn't be a bad thing considering how complacent the former Klein Calgary tory MLAs have been under Stelmach.
I wonder if Richard Evans will join up with Chandler's posse. He certainly enjoyed himself at the municipal voting level in Calgary, trying to diss Bob Hawkesworth.
Me, I'll be making popcorn election night if all these folks truly do run. The quotes and stances leading up to the X in the box should be refreshingly honest about the right wing.
Starspangled, does it seem at all odd to you that your pinning the Liberals hopes in Calgary on a man named Craig Chandler, rather than on a man named Kevin Taft?
I mean we all know Dr. Taft is fairly useless as a leader and still a virtual unknown to most Calgarians (despite having 3 members of his caucus from that city), but at what point do we ask the Liberals to win seats on their own merit rather than depending on right-wing vote splitting?
The saddest part is that there is no current Liberal MLA who would do much better as leader. "Bill Bonko for premier" just doesn't have much ring to it...
Although it definitely sounds Liberal.
Q: What's the main difference between finding Kevin Taft canvassing and a dog whining at your door?
A: The dog stops whining when you let him in!
Just a bit o' campaign humour.
The continual flogging of the Chandler issue is symptomatic of the lack of a real government alternative provided by the Alberta Liberals under Kevin Taft. Take a look at Graham Thomson's piece in the Edm Journal today (Dec. 20). The guy is a HUGE liberal sympathizer, and even he can't squeeze much good out of the ALP in his article, other than to say Liberals will benefit from a change in Albertans' voting patterns.
The quote he got from Kevin Taft on royalties is hilarious in how close it mirrors Stephane Dion's infamous "you think it is easy to make priorities" hissy-fit. Ol' Kev's royalty policy is encapsulated in one sentence: we think royalties should be increased, but the details of how that would occur are "technical" and would best be left to bureaucrats. I am positively blinded by the man's brilliance.
But then again, with Hugh McDonald as his energy critic (oops, shadow minister), Taft probably has little to work with.
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