The self-destruction of the Progressive Conservative party accelerated this month with heated exchanges between candidates and their supporters that has coarsened the leadership process.
It started with the dramatic entrance to the PC policy convention in Red Deer Nov. 5, of a convoy of school buses full of youthful newly recruited members that backed Jason Kenney's ideology in convention floor fights.
The veil came off the Kenney campaign and it is well-organized, tough, relentless and ruthless.
The excitement and enthusiasm touched off by the convention takeover also enabled the intimidation and taunting of rival candidate Sandra Jansen.
Jansen withdrew from the leadership race because of the bullying.
But Kenney could not leave well enough alone and he gained a day of headlines by saying he has been bullied too.
The convoy and the reaction to it left no doubt that Kenney is the candidate of the conservative-minded establishment.
It's a long way to the March 18, 2017 leadership convention in Calgary, but Kenney has a commanding head start in the campaign.
As the former member of parliament drove across Alberta this summer in the blue truck, some of the brightest organizational minds in Alberta politics worked quietly away in a spartan office on Bonaventure Drive in southeast Calgary.
The convoy to the convention was one outcome of the hard work. Election of Kenney supporters at constituency delegate selection meetings across the province was another.
But Kenney has overplayed his hand.
The bigger the field of candidates, the better Kenney's chances are, because rivals are splitting the Anybody-But-Kenney vote.
Jansen's withdrawal was followed by Donna Kennedy-Glans stepping aside because she thinks the party is moving too far right.
So the field is down to just Kenney, Calgary lawyer Byron Nelson, MLA Richard Starke and former MLA Stephen Khan.
Kenney has lost about half of the vote splitting his strategy has relied on.
Kenney is at the start of a long, long political pilgrimage.
He is the candidate of the Progressive Conservative backroom establishment.
That group of political bluebloods plans to unseat the NDP and go back to the “safe” ways of the Lougheed-created dynasty.
To paraphrase the infamous bumper sticker from the 1980s, “Give us another Conservative boom, and we promise not to p*** it all away.”
However, the fight for the future of the Progressive Conservative party and the fight for the future leadership of Alberta are two different battles.
The struggle to determine whether Jason Kenney will lead the right is of lesser importance than the showdown between the NDP and whatever opposition it faces in the next election.
- Frank Dabbs is a veteran political and business journalist, author of four books and editor of several more.
