What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun, Alberta politics included.
Except for the Alberta part, that piece of wisdom has been in western culture since Solomon the king of Israel dictated it as part of a manuscript called Ecclesiates approximately 3,000 years ago.
Alberta has been a cauldron of political ambition since the election of 1909 when a socialist and two independents broke ranks to seek election because they believed the province could do better in other hands than those of the established political parties.
It has become myth that Albertans have uniform political views because they kept just four political dynasties in government for 110 consecutive years from 1905 to 2015. (It is too early to say yet whether Rachel Notley has started yet another long-lived regime.)
More than a third of Alberta elections have been won with a minority of the popular vote and every dynastic premier has been returned to office at least once by vote splitting. As many as a dozen parties have split the vote in some elections.
The ubiquitous presence of small but determined candidates who climbed down from their tractors to change the political world accounts for the small size of opposition caucuses as much as for the large size of governments.
In the shimmering light of Alberta's red-hot political brew, many who covet power see visions and dream dreams of a better Alberta. Jason Kenney is just the latest of these dreamers and schemers.
That he wants to dethrone the most popular politician in the province – official Opposition leader Brian Jean – speaks volumes for the difficulty of persuading an ambitious and undaunted man like Kenney that he faces very long odds.
What is more certain than a Kenney victory, three years out from the next election, is that Rachel Notley will benefit as premiers in the past have benefited from an abundance of opposition parties.
When Brian Jean talks about “conservative consolidation” he is on the side of history because a “united right” goes against the grain of Alberta's experience.
Frank Dabbs, the editor of the Didsbury Review, is a veteran political and business journalist, author of four books, contributor to two anthologies and editor of four other titles.
