Lack of enthusiasm for the leadership race among some Alberta Progressive Conservatives suggests a party in trouble.
“Leadership campaigns by nature can be divisive. It’s going to be the summer from hell,” Rod Love said last week.
Love led mayoralty, party leadership and provincial election campaigns for Ralph Klein.
Others Tories agree with Love, fearing that a long race will fracture the party.
Still others fear the government will be paralyzed into inactivity.
It all seems forbiddingly odd. Normally, leadership contests are enthusiastically engaged.
They offer a chance to expand party membership, fill coffers, debate policies and galvanize the base.
Leadership races let members press for changes in the way they want to see the party led. In Alberta, where Tories have ruled for 29 consecutive years, that invites a more direct say in how the province is governed.
This time, however, there’s a sense from some insiders that this leadership race will be a slow-motion train wreck.
Last week, Ed Stelmach announced that he will remain premier until September. That means the race to succeed him will extend six months after this legislative session ends.
Stelmach emphatically said that’s not too long.
Alberta is a big province, he said. Ensuring that party members get a fair chance to assess all candidates takes time.
Love and others beg to differ. When Klein succeeded Don Getty in 1992, that race only lasted three months, Love notes.
That’s true, but not so relevant today. When Stelmach succeeded Klein in 2006, that campaign lasted as long as this one will.
Albertans with any interest in politics could see all candidates in group forums set up by the party, and one-on-one as they toured every region.
In the days that oldtimers seem to recall so fondly, individual party members had far less say.
Party insiders held too much sway. Races, decided by selected delegates, could be warped by backroom horse trading.
New, western-based political parties turned the political tide in Canada by insisting that every party member deserved a leadership vote.
There’s no going back now.
Besides, a hotly contended race gives the Conservatives prime time in the media spotlight.
The Tories’ greatest fear is the Wildrose Alliance and its charismatic leader Danielle Smith.
She won’t get the same media attention with a Conservative leadership campaign under way than she would in a normal summer. Political reporters will focus on the leadership race at the expense of opposition parties.
The race is now on. Doug Horner became the second candidate last week, joining Ted Morton.
Horner has held three cabinet posts and served as deputy premier.
He comes from a distinguished political family, but few voters outside the inner Tory circle or his base north of Edmonton can claim to have a good sense of the man.
They will have ample opportunity to get that between now and late September.
Other top contenders expected to join Horner soon include Justice Minister Alison Redford and former cabinet minister Gary Mar, Alberta’s official agent in Washington D.C.
Both come from Calgary, as does Morton. It’s part of the province that felt shut out for too long by Stelmach. Many feel it’s their turn to lead again.
A Calgary-based premier would also help blunt the Wildrose Alliance, which is far stronger in Southern Alberta than in the north.
If Horner is the only top cabinet-level candidate to come out of the north, that gives him a big leg up to get to the second voting round.
We all know what can happen then.
Stelmach came to power in 2006 over Morton and Jim Dinning (who has ruled himself out of this race) as the lesser-evil second choice of many Tories.
Those rules remain part of the Conservative party constitution and will be in play this fall.
Three second-tier cabinet ministers are considering a run: Jonathan Denis, Doug Griffiths and Lindsay Blackett.
While their odds seem long, they deserve a chance to be heard.
Their absence from cabinet until this fall could hardly threaten an energetic government.
Even if they all enter, the race would still have only half as many candidates as in 2006.
If many Tories feel September is too long to wait for a new premier, and too damaging to the government, it’s probably not the length of the leadership campaign that’s at issue.
If they are so worn out and fractured that a 67-member Tory caucus can be paralyzed by the threat of a six-month leadership campaign and a four-member Wildrose Alliance caucus, perhaps it’s the Tories’ tenure in government that’s been too long.
Joe McLaughlin is the retired former managing editor of the Red Deer Advocate.