Alberta's Conservatives need a silver bullet to stop the Wildrose Party before the next election.
In the past eight years they have rejected two wannabes -- Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford.
The two won elections handily in spite of doom and gloom predictions., However, in the mysterious alchemy of the Conservative party, they didn't fill Ralph Klein's and Peter Lougheed's shoes.
Stelmach and Redford never warmed up to the backroom boys who have run the party since Klein empowered them to do so.
Fatally for their careers, they failed to stop the patient and steady growth of the Wildrose party.
They also failed to fill the party's dwindling treasury.
The new great hope of the party establishment is lawyer, banker, former Calgary MP and federal cabinet minister Jim Prentice, who officially entered the campaign last week.
Prentice passed the first leadership gauntlet by organizing a record premier's fundraising dinner in Calgary this spring.
This will not be a "coronation", say Conservative apologists, thanks to the credibility of former alderman and MLA Ric McIver who announced his candidacy modestly on the front lawn of his Calgary home.
Edmonton Castle-Downs MLA and job skills, training and labour cabinet minister Thomas Lukaszuk may also enter if he can find backers for the $50,000 entry fee.
Both McIver and Lukaszuk must raise the daunting fee before May 30.
The relentless Prentice machine, complete with its parachute Toronto political consultants, is a steamroller, whatever McIver and Lukaszuk do.
This may not be a coronation, but the outcome is a safe bet.
Prentice is a good man – upright, plain-spoken, hard-working.
Time will tell if he leads the party or the party leads him.
In a peculiar way, the Prentice candidacy is also another moment of Conservative entitlement.
Entitlement, says the dictionary, is the belief that you deserve to be given something.
Every good Alberta Conservative believes in the eternal life of their party as government.
After all, they are entitled to govern the province.
Frank Dabbs is a veteran business and political journalist, author of three biographies, and a contributor to, researcher or editor of half a dozen books.
