Since the by-election that “Sent Ed a message,” no one in the NDP has really admitted what it means to the party.
Sure, most of the Dippers in Alberta were finishing off their convention mere hours before the polls opened in Calgary-Glenmore. They were patting Brian Mason on the back and making promises about running candidates in every riding. You’d think it was a good’er except the “Biggest in Recent History” was five years ago.
Then the byelection happened and I don’t even think the members from the Calgary-Glenmore riding association showed up to vote. In fact, Eric Carpendale (the parachute candidate) got a mere 27 votes more than his Facebook Group (which I think was the extent of his campaign).
The worst part, that no one really seems to care about, is that the NDP was nearly beat by the defunct Social Credit party! I mean, even in the general election, the worst NDP ridings garnered 3-5% of the vote. In 2008 we got 3.8% in that same riding. Over 300 votes vanished.
No one really asked why the Alberta NDP caucus was cut in half in 2008, and were merely proud to have Rachel Notley join Brian Mason in the Legislature, and no one really seems to care that the NDP is throwing away ridings.
Could we have converted any of the PC/WRAP votes to NDP votes with a heavy campaign? Probably not. But then again, a wide majority of people stayed home again. Until you show some initiative and get those voters inspired, you’ll either be locked in the opposition bench, or obliterated.
Sometimes sites like this may be meant more as an actual message then a mere prank [note: I did not start that site and it likely was just a prank].
But don’t take solace, Alberta Liberals. You didn’t pick up any votes either.
So the NDP is slipping down the hill and the Liberals are spinning their tires. All this while the right gains strengths and pushes Stelmach to do something stupid.
WordPress
Facebook
Google +
I’m starting to wonder if Alberta needs to fall off the cliff into something seriously nasty before Albertans will realize how bad the Conservative dynasty has been. Of course, at that point, the remaining alternatives might be even worse.
PR might help, at least in terms of getting the other three players a bit of a profile, but Stelmach would still have a clear majority.
Conventions are a hard thing to use to gauge popularity of the party. They really depend a lot on location, timing and other factors.
That 2004 convention was also a leadership convention, and leadership conventions, even uncontested ones tend to attract more delegates/media/observers than run of the mill annual policy conventions. The article doesn’t say “500 party members in attendance” or “500 delegates in attendance” it says “500 in attendance.” It also occurred immediately prior to what many thought would be a hotly contested election, and there hasn’t been an Alberta NDP convention since then that happened immediately prior to an election since the 2007 election was cancelled because there was an election scare that would have put it right in the middle of when it was thought there would be an election.
I’ve been to the 2006, 2008 and 2009 conventions. The 2006 convention was a rather small policy convention. It was at the midpoint between elections, so that doesn’t really surprise me. The 2008 convention was significantly larger, with over 200 delegates in attendance, which is impressive considering it was just after a major election defeat, and in Calgary rather than Edmonton. This last one in Edmonton was slightly smaller, but that largely due to a boycott by one of the larger union affiliates (I still don’t really understand the reasons for the boycott) but I think if it hadn’t been for that it would have been larger.