Jason Kenney has four mountains to climb in three years, each one steeper and higher, to become a truly conservative Alberta premier.
Fortunately he is cheery by nature and a bachelor workaholic, because he'll need to whistle as he works each day from “no see to no see” to win the prize he seeks.
He must win the Progressive Conservative leadership, and for that he will need every minute of the eight months' lead time to the March 18, 2017 convention.
His operatives must gain control of enough of the 87 provincial constituencies for Kenney to have a majority of delegates on the first ballot at the leadership convention.
He must then organize and fund a new party.
Elections Alberta has made it clear that Alberta law will not accommodate a merger, and that the treasuries of the Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties cannot be transferred to the new party.
Then Kenny must persuade skeptical Wildrose Party members to dump their leader Brian Jean and join the new party.
Finally the new Kenney party must win the next general election as a dark blue doctrinaire and partisan conservative movement going head to head with the urban progressive NDP.
Kenney has heavy political baggage to carry, off-loaded by then-prime minister Stephen Harper when he lost the October 2015 federal election, and by the right wing of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives who were out of step with the voters in the May 2015 provincial election.
The polarization Kenney brings to Alberta politics was never more evident than when the NDP gave him a tongue-in-cheek endorsement.
He is a dream come true for the NDP.
It would much prefer to run against a clearly right-wing opponent like Kenney than a moderate or even progressive middle-of-the-road politician.
If the NDP is correct in its analysis that the new Alberta has an urban and progressive political majority, then Jason Kenney as the leader of a united right will lead the lemmings over the cliff.
- Frank Dabbs is the editor of the Didsbury Review, a veteran political and energy journalist, the author of four books and editor of several more.
