I have been so busy this week end and today I have not done the “Send ’Em a Message Survey results update. I will do it tomorrow morning so it will be posted by Noon.
There is a change in the issues priorities this week. It is very interesting too.
You may want to take 5 minutes and do the survey. It is the Send ’Em a Message link on the home page of Policy Channel www.policychannel.com.
Stick with it even if it frustrates you by forcing you to make issues trade offs you would not want to make usually. We get the real level of your commitment to competing policy issues by forcing the tradeoffs.
The idea behind the survey is to see what should be the list of priority policy issues Albertans want the new Premier to attend to right away and how important are they relatively speaking.
There are prior posting on this Blog about results and trends to date. Look in the Archives for the Send ‘Em a Message Update posting if you are interested.
Monday, November 27, 2006
What is Happening This Week?
I received this note from a friend outside the blogosphere. I promised not to identify the person but thought sharing our exchange might be interesting for readers. My friend writes:
Ken,
I enjoyed reading your analysis of the first vote, and the implications for round two. I'm not going to comment on the blog, but wanted to offer my perspective.
• My first take on the weekend was to agree that among existing voters, Edmonton is the battleground. More than 50% of the votes here have been freed-up to go to other candidates, versus just 17% in Calgary and 24% outside the two centres. But in absolute numbers, the vote total in Edmonton wasn't impressive, so that translates into about 11,800 round-one votes from Edmonton that need to find a home, but also 11,400 non-big-city votes looking.
• The potential for continued walk-up sales is enormous. I think there's a growing appreciation that in this one-party-state, all Albertans have a stake in the election for Premier. It wouldn't surprise me if 200,000 people voted in the final round, at which point the outcome becomes highly unpredictable and unmanageable. I think that also means that Thursday's televised debate could be a watershed moment -- if any of the candidates stumble in that showing, their walk-up support could disappear.
• 40% of Stelmach's vote (6,207 votes) came from just seven ridings -- the ones near his own -- and there were 44 ridings where he attracted fewer than 100 votes, including all of Calgary. This doesn't bode well for his growth on the second-ballot. On the other hand, it doesn't matter where the voter lives, as long as you get the vote. If Hancock has turned out every voter in his riding who voted for him in the provincial election, he'd be on the second ballot. (I'm being glib, but it's true.) So other than capturing the endorsements, campaigns may be best served playing to their strengths.
• If Stelmach moves into second place, it's clear that he'll win the final count going away. After all, how many Dinning or Morton supporters will be listing each other's candidate as their second choice. Ed is everyone's second choice. But he's got a lot of ground to make up before that fact can become useful.
• There is a strong argument to be made that social-conservative supporters will see how close their man is to victory and be motivated to turn-out. Likewise, centrist and left-leaning voters may turn up to stop Morton, and would probably back the front-runner. Is there a similar crop of motivated rural or northern-Alberta voters for Stelmach?
• The gold-star goes to Hung Pham. Between the Edmonton advance poll and Calgary-Montrose, he delivered 1,000 votes. Question: is he following Oberg's choice on the second ballot? And will he make the same organizational effort to deliver those 1,000 votes? These are perhaps the only votes that can be reliably "delivered" by any defeated candidate. I doubt that the endorsements from Hancock and Oberg will produce a high-level of cohesion from their voters, so I think your numbers in today's post are optimistic.
• A personal note: I think there are more important things in this campaign than the Edmonton/Calgary rivalry, and other than that motivation I don't see much reason to vote for Stelmach. I'll admit that I'm strongly motivated to vote against Morton, but that's one-half because of his ideology and one-half because he's completed unqualified to run the government. The man's never run an organization that's the size of cabinet, much less led a cabinet and caucus that in turn runs the province. A belief in good governance is a moral value too. Forget the firewall letter; let's talk about basic qualifications for the job.
Apologies for the long ramble, but your blog-posts got me thinking and I wanted to share some of this with you.
All the best,
AND I REPLY:
You are a wise and insightful man.
No growth in Calgary for Stelmach is pretty much a given. He holds his base and the Oberg voters are a question. Jim owns Calgary and the new votes there will be mostly for him and some for Morton.
There is a huge built up frustrated animus towards the Calgary power elites from all other sectors and areas of Alberta. Stelmach and Morton will be a lightening rods for that animus and people will show up to express it at the ballot box. "The North Wants In" is becoming a ballot box motivator for many Albertans Red Deer and north. "More Alberta - Less Ottawa" seems to resonate with Morton southerners.
There is also a profound distrust of the republican-lite/evangelical motivations of Morton from those not in his political "church." He has growth potential because they are close to achieving real power and feel they and been tricked and duped by Harper. The Quebec Nation question is perhaps their last straw I sense. So they will try to make Alberta into a U.S. Repubican-values caricature if they can't do it Nationally.
The fragmentation of our Alberta polity is becoming profound and pronounced and is not just an isolated Edmonton phenomenon any more.
Human decency, trustworthiness, respectfulness and authenticity counts for something amongst in fair minded people. Will that animate them to turn up. 100000 strong showed up last Saturday, almost from nowhere, on the coldest most miserable day of the year so far. That tells me Albertans will becoming out in droves on Saturday. Bad weather is not a negative factor but good weather will be a positive influence.
They are waking up to the campaign outcomes implications and walking up to the voting opportunity and most of all, they are stepping up to take back the ultimate decision about how they choose to be governed. The open question is who are they showing up to support? Today who knows? Saturday all will be decided but I bet not much will be clear.
Stelmach needs a successful political campaign this week. But he needs more than that. He needs a secular crusade to create a ground swell of individual engagement. That crusade needs to show up and give him a mandate for real change - and you know what - I think it might just happen. Yes it is a bit "Field of Dreams-ish" I know. But I am a sucker for romance.
Cheers!
________________________________________
Ken,
I enjoyed reading your analysis of the first vote, and the implications for round two. I'm not going to comment on the blog, but wanted to offer my perspective.
• My first take on the weekend was to agree that among existing voters, Edmonton is the battleground. More than 50% of the votes here have been freed-up to go to other candidates, versus just 17% in Calgary and 24% outside the two centres. But in absolute numbers, the vote total in Edmonton wasn't impressive, so that translates into about 11,800 round-one votes from Edmonton that need to find a home, but also 11,400 non-big-city votes looking.
• The potential for continued walk-up sales is enormous. I think there's a growing appreciation that in this one-party-state, all Albertans have a stake in the election for Premier. It wouldn't surprise me if 200,000 people voted in the final round, at which point the outcome becomes highly unpredictable and unmanageable. I think that also means that Thursday's televised debate could be a watershed moment -- if any of the candidates stumble in that showing, their walk-up support could disappear.
• 40% of Stelmach's vote (6,207 votes) came from just seven ridings -- the ones near his own -- and there were 44 ridings where he attracted fewer than 100 votes, including all of Calgary. This doesn't bode well for his growth on the second-ballot. On the other hand, it doesn't matter where the voter lives, as long as you get the vote. If Hancock has turned out every voter in his riding who voted for him in the provincial election, he'd be on the second ballot. (I'm being glib, but it's true.) So other than capturing the endorsements, campaigns may be best served playing to their strengths.
• If Stelmach moves into second place, it's clear that he'll win the final count going away. After all, how many Dinning or Morton supporters will be listing each other's candidate as their second choice. Ed is everyone's second choice. But he's got a lot of ground to make up before that fact can become useful.
• There is a strong argument to be made that social-conservative supporters will see how close their man is to victory and be motivated to turn-out. Likewise, centrist and left-leaning voters may turn up to stop Morton, and would probably back the front-runner. Is there a similar crop of motivated rural or northern-Alberta voters for Stelmach?
• The gold-star goes to Hung Pham. Between the Edmonton advance poll and Calgary-Montrose, he delivered 1,000 votes. Question: is he following Oberg's choice on the second ballot? And will he make the same organizational effort to deliver those 1,000 votes? These are perhaps the only votes that can be reliably "delivered" by any defeated candidate. I doubt that the endorsements from Hancock and Oberg will produce a high-level of cohesion from their voters, so I think your numbers in today's post are optimistic.
• A personal note: I think there are more important things in this campaign than the Edmonton/Calgary rivalry, and other than that motivation I don't see much reason to vote for Stelmach. I'll admit that I'm strongly motivated to vote against Morton, but that's one-half because of his ideology and one-half because he's completed unqualified to run the government. The man's never run an organization that's the size of cabinet, much less led a cabinet and caucus that in turn runs the province. A belief in good governance is a moral value too. Forget the firewall letter; let's talk about basic qualifications for the job.
Apologies for the long ramble, but your blog-posts got me thinking and I wanted to share some of this with you.
All the best,
AND I REPLY:
You are a wise and insightful man.
No growth in Calgary for Stelmach is pretty much a given. He holds his base and the Oberg voters are a question. Jim owns Calgary and the new votes there will be mostly for him and some for Morton.
There is a huge built up frustrated animus towards the Calgary power elites from all other sectors and areas of Alberta. Stelmach and Morton will be a lightening rods for that animus and people will show up to express it at the ballot box. "The North Wants In" is becoming a ballot box motivator for many Albertans Red Deer and north. "More Alberta - Less Ottawa" seems to resonate with Morton southerners.
There is also a profound distrust of the republican-lite/evangelical motivations of Morton from those not in his political "church." He has growth potential because they are close to achieving real power and feel they and been tricked and duped by Harper. The Quebec Nation question is perhaps their last straw I sense. So they will try to make Alberta into a U.S. Repubican-values caricature if they can't do it Nationally.
The fragmentation of our Alberta polity is becoming profound and pronounced and is not just an isolated Edmonton phenomenon any more.
Human decency, trustworthiness, respectfulness and authenticity counts for something amongst in fair minded people. Will that animate them to turn up. 100000 strong showed up last Saturday, almost from nowhere, on the coldest most miserable day of the year so far. That tells me Albertans will becoming out in droves on Saturday. Bad weather is not a negative factor but good weather will be a positive influence.
They are waking up to the campaign outcomes implications and walking up to the voting opportunity and most of all, they are stepping up to take back the ultimate decision about how they choose to be governed. The open question is who are they showing up to support? Today who knows? Saturday all will be decided but I bet not much will be clear.
Stelmach needs a successful political campaign this week. But he needs more than that. He needs a secular crusade to create a ground swell of individual engagement. That crusade needs to show up and give him a mandate for real change - and you know what - I think it might just happen. Yes it is a bit "Field of Dreams-ish" I know. But I am a sucker for romance.
Cheers!
________________________________________
Is Premier Stelmach Possible?
So based on my assumptions and the earlier posting allocating Hancock, Oberg and Norris support to Stelmach, coming out of Edmonton and the rural vote he is effectively tied with Morton for and adjusted base vote going into the second week.
So what happens in Calgary? First Dinning owns Calgary with 13752 votes for 53% of the total. Awesome control over that city. Morton was a respectable second place with 6817. So what happens to the Hancock, Oberg and Norris votes in Calgary?
I think all the Hancock, Oberg and Norris votes go to Stelmach. They are urban votes and any bleed may be from Norris but the base is so small as to not make much of a difference. I do not think the Calgary Oberg votes will switch to Morton if they are evangelical or, maybe Dinning if they ad Calgary-centric, or they stay home. One can not possible know this dynamic. At any rate, this is the best possible scenario for Stelmach.
To catch second place Morton, Stelmach needs to garner over 6800 votes. Well he has 1256 of his own, 542 from Hancock and 702 from Norris and assuming all of Oberg’s Calgary support goes to Stelmach – a big assumption, he gets 2946 from Oberg. That total 5446, leaving him about 1000 to 1500 votes shy of an equal footing with Morton when all the reallocations are done…again you have to accept my assumptions on allocation and retention by the also-rans.
That is to my mind terrific and means it is doable to catch Morton. Of course the sale of many more memberships to people committed enough to show up is key. Stelmach has growth potential in Edmonton and the North and some central rural, Dinning has growth in Calgary and region. Morton has many more Reformers, Alberta Alliance and Evangelicals in his hip pocket yet too. There were over 70,000 Alliance ballots cast in the 2004 election and Morton only has 25,600 first ballot votes. He has growth potential too.
This could be a 34/33/33 split after the second ballot. If so, based on second vote preferences we get Premier Stelmach so long as the middle 33% is him!
So what happens in Calgary? First Dinning owns Calgary with 13752 votes for 53% of the total. Awesome control over that city. Morton was a respectable second place with 6817. So what happens to the Hancock, Oberg and Norris votes in Calgary?
I think all the Hancock, Oberg and Norris votes go to Stelmach. They are urban votes and any bleed may be from Norris but the base is so small as to not make much of a difference. I do not think the Calgary Oberg votes will switch to Morton if they are evangelical or, maybe Dinning if they ad Calgary-centric, or they stay home. One can not possible know this dynamic. At any rate, this is the best possible scenario for Stelmach.
To catch second place Morton, Stelmach needs to garner over 6800 votes. Well he has 1256 of his own, 542 from Hancock and 702 from Norris and assuming all of Oberg’s Calgary support goes to Stelmach – a big assumption, he gets 2946 from Oberg. That total 5446, leaving him about 1000 to 1500 votes shy of an equal footing with Morton when all the reallocations are done…again you have to accept my assumptions on allocation and retention by the also-rans.
That is to my mind terrific and means it is doable to catch Morton. Of course the sale of many more memberships to people committed enough to show up is key. Stelmach has growth potential in Edmonton and the North and some central rural, Dinning has growth in Calgary and region. Morton has many more Reformers, Alberta Alliance and Evangelicals in his hip pocket yet too. There were over 70,000 Alliance ballots cast in the 2004 election and Morton only has 25,600 first ballot votes. He has growth potential too.
This could be a 34/33/33 split after the second ballot. If so, based on second vote preferences we get Premier Stelmach so long as the middle 33% is him!
Dinning's Stars and Slackers
The Dinning MLA Stars and Slackers are tougher to comment upon. Jim is so dominant individually in Calgary with his relationships in the energy sector I think he personally delivered Calgary with a whopping total vote of 13,752.
In Calgary Dinning’s relationship to the local MLAs is that they can depend on him to win their seats for them because of his personal influence in that city. Klein had that kind of sway in Calgary and most MLAs counted on his personal elect ability to win ridings. As a result it is hard to pick Stars or Slackers on winning Calgary seats. Dinning only lost Hung Pham’s Montrose constituency to Oberg but he literally "owns" the rest of the city.
So I see no reason therefore to look how the 18 Calgary MLAs who supported Dinning did to get out the vote. Some high turn outs are worth noting. His own area of Elbow (Premier Klein’s constituency) he drew 1153 that is 60% of the total. Ron Leipert pulled in 1026 votes in Calgary West for 56%. Shiraz Shariff in Calgary McCall pulled out 922 votes an impressive 69% of votes cast.
There were 11 slackers who did not win their constituency for their man and they were spread all over the province from Cabinet Ministers like Mike Cardinal in Athabasca –Redwater to Barry McFarland in Little Bow. Little Bow had 271 Dinning backers and a total vote of 1910 for a 14% share - not impressive. Minister Renner of Medicine Hat had a 33% showing and Minister Coutts of Livingstone Macleod garnered 26% of the votes. If they all want a Dinning win they can forget about sleeping this week...they have work to do.
Richard Marz showed up with 27% of the voters in Olds-Didsbury- Three Hills. Newcomers Doug Griffiths in Battle River-Wainwright turned in 22% of the voters and Len Mitzel of Cypress-Medicine Hat gather 23% support from his area. Rob Lougheed a late convert to Dinning lost Strathcona outside Edmonton with 22%. Hon. Ty Lund only garnered 25% in Rocky Mountain House in a lost cause for Dinning. NOT impressive!
“Stars” because they won the constituency but not with remarkable results were Janis Tarchuk in Banff-Cochrane with 40% turnout, Hon George VanderBurg pulled in 43% the Hon. Gordon Graydon of Grande Prairie- Wapiti and Frank Oberle of Peace River both had 38% turn up for Dinning.
The two Edmonton supporters won their ridings for Dinning where there were often four-way splits in the voting. Lukaszuk in Edmonton Castle-Downs tallied 38% with help from his Mom who was apparently was the star salesperson. Hon Gene Zwozdesky in Edmonton Mill Creek pulled a 33% and still won. Edmonton area supporters George Rogers of Leduc-Beaumont-Devon is technically a “star” but won by 2 votes.
MLA Endorsements are nice but if they don’t deliver and their leadership candidate “turtles” they mostly have to blame themselves. The idea is not to just ride on the leader’s coat tails but to get out and ensure the victory for the party.
The 2004 election saw 210,000 fewer votes for PC candidates throughout Alberta. They were sending us a message. Based on the poor showing by some MLAs for both Dinning and Stelmach, the message is still being sent but there is lots of evidence that we are not yet listening.
If we keep this up we will have Premier Morton for two years and then Premier Taft or Premier Bronconnier afterwards.
In Calgary Dinning’s relationship to the local MLAs is that they can depend on him to win their seats for them because of his personal influence in that city. Klein had that kind of sway in Calgary and most MLAs counted on his personal elect ability to win ridings. As a result it is hard to pick Stars or Slackers on winning Calgary seats. Dinning only lost Hung Pham’s Montrose constituency to Oberg but he literally "owns" the rest of the city.
So I see no reason therefore to look how the 18 Calgary MLAs who supported Dinning did to get out the vote. Some high turn outs are worth noting. His own area of Elbow (Premier Klein’s constituency) he drew 1153 that is 60% of the total. Ron Leipert pulled in 1026 votes in Calgary West for 56%. Shiraz Shariff in Calgary McCall pulled out 922 votes an impressive 69% of votes cast.
There were 11 slackers who did not win their constituency for their man and they were spread all over the province from Cabinet Ministers like Mike Cardinal in Athabasca –Redwater to Barry McFarland in Little Bow. Little Bow had 271 Dinning backers and a total vote of 1910 for a 14% share - not impressive. Minister Renner of Medicine Hat had a 33% showing and Minister Coutts of Livingstone Macleod garnered 26% of the votes. If they all want a Dinning win they can forget about sleeping this week...they have work to do.
Richard Marz showed up with 27% of the voters in Olds-Didsbury- Three Hills. Newcomers Doug Griffiths in Battle River-Wainwright turned in 22% of the voters and Len Mitzel of Cypress-Medicine Hat gather 23% support from his area. Rob Lougheed a late convert to Dinning lost Strathcona outside Edmonton with 22%. Hon. Ty Lund only garnered 25% in Rocky Mountain House in a lost cause for Dinning. NOT impressive!
“Stars” because they won the constituency but not with remarkable results were Janis Tarchuk in Banff-Cochrane with 40% turnout, Hon George VanderBurg pulled in 43% the Hon. Gordon Graydon of Grande Prairie- Wapiti and Frank Oberle of Peace River both had 38% turn up for Dinning.
The two Edmonton supporters won their ridings for Dinning where there were often four-way splits in the voting. Lukaszuk in Edmonton Castle-Downs tallied 38% with help from his Mom who was apparently was the star salesperson. Hon Gene Zwozdesky in Edmonton Mill Creek pulled a 33% and still won. Edmonton area supporters George Rogers of Leduc-Beaumont-Devon is technically a “star” but won by 2 votes.
MLA Endorsements are nice but if they don’t deliver and their leadership candidate “turtles” they mostly have to blame themselves. The idea is not to just ride on the leader’s coat tails but to get out and ensure the victory for the party.
The 2004 election saw 210,000 fewer votes for PC candidates throughout Alberta. They were sending us a message. Based on the poor showing by some MLAs for both Dinning and Stelmach, the message is still being sent but there is lots of evidence that we are not yet listening.
If we keep this up we will have Premier Morton for two years and then Premier Taft or Premier Bronconnier afterwards.
Can Stelmach Catch Morton?
Edmonton will be a battle ground this week to select the next PC leader and pro tem Premier. No guarantee that this week will be anything like the last week in Edmonton or Alberta for that matter, but there are some interesting facts that indicate strengths and potential for growth.
The Edmonton vote was split up all over the place. Dinning had 5575 in Edmonton and Hancock had 4995. No doubt some Hancock votes will bleed to Dinning. Oberg was third in Edmonton with 3228 and they have no reason to go to Dinning but will bleed some to Morton who had a respectable 2739 total in Edmonton. Norris was fourth in Edmonton with 3125 and Stelmach was only 200 votes behind him at 2925.
So let’s make some assumptions and see how this all shakes out. Let’s presume Hancock and Oberg bleed 30% each to Dinning and Morton respectively and the rest goes to Stelmach. We don’t know where Norris is going yet but we know a big part of the motivation for his backers was an “anybody but a Calgarian” leader. The question is will they show up for Ed or just go through the motions? So let’s say Norris delivers 60% of his vote to Ed and the rest splits evenly between Morton and Dinning. No reason to think Stelmach would see any of his core Edmonton support drift away.
So Stelmach has 2925 and he gets 3500 votes (rounded) from Hancock, and 2300 (rounded) from Oberg and 1875 from Norris. His total “presumed” second week Edmonton base is therefore 10600.
Dinning has 5575 and there is no reason to think he wouldn’t keep that base. He gets 1500 from Hancock and 625 from Norris for a “presumed second week Edmonton base of 7700.
Morton has 2739 and gets 625 from Norris and 970 from Oberg for a “presumed second week Edmonton base of 4350 (rounded). I think there is a chance for a small amount of Morton’s Edmonton support to stay home but not enough to make a difference.
Stelmach can win if he can be in second place on the first count on December 2. The first ballot totals were 25600 Morton and 15,000 Stelmach so he needs 10600 more votes to break even from the first ballot and another 1600 from bleed to Morton in Edmonton for an Edmonton shortfall of 12200 going into the second ballot. He has a good chance to pick up 7700 of those in Edmonton alone from Hancock, Oberg and Norris. Which leaves him 4500 short of catching Morton just coming out of the endorsement adjustments in Edmonton.
The rural vote is interesting too. Morton is very strong with 15460 votes to Stelmach’s 10470 for a shortfall of 5000. My sense is Oberg has already lost whatever rural vote he had to Morton based on the kind of campaign he ran and the idea of we need to change the old boys network in the party. I am assuming Oberg’s remaining 5353 voters are not going to bleed to Morton and really are rural voters who will en masse to support another rural candidate like Stelmach. I think all Hancock and Norris rural voters go to Stelmach because there is no reason to go Morton or Dinning.
Coming out of Edmonton Stelmach is facing an adjusted shortfall to catch Morton of 4500 plus the first vote rural shortfall of 5000. Stelmach needs to make up 9500 votes to catch Morton before we face Calgary. He gets Hancock’s rural vote of 2000, Norris’ 3000 and Oberg’s 5300 which makes 10300 and effectively puts him even with Morton going into Calgary.
I will do an analysis of the Calgary vote implications for Stelmach journey to catch Morton tomorrow. Fact is Dinning “owns” Calgary butMorton is strong. How much does the allocation of the “also- rans” voters help Stelmach catch Morton?
Then there is the momentum and growth factor and the “Who really wants it” factor and who is going to go out and get it like Klein did last time.
Stay tuned.
The Edmonton vote was split up all over the place. Dinning had 5575 in Edmonton and Hancock had 4995. No doubt some Hancock votes will bleed to Dinning. Oberg was third in Edmonton with 3228 and they have no reason to go to Dinning but will bleed some to Morton who had a respectable 2739 total in Edmonton. Norris was fourth in Edmonton with 3125 and Stelmach was only 200 votes behind him at 2925.
So let’s make some assumptions and see how this all shakes out. Let’s presume Hancock and Oberg bleed 30% each to Dinning and Morton respectively and the rest goes to Stelmach. We don’t know where Norris is going yet but we know a big part of the motivation for his backers was an “anybody but a Calgarian” leader. The question is will they show up for Ed or just go through the motions? So let’s say Norris delivers 60% of his vote to Ed and the rest splits evenly between Morton and Dinning. No reason to think Stelmach would see any of his core Edmonton support drift away.
So Stelmach has 2925 and he gets 3500 votes (rounded) from Hancock, and 2300 (rounded) from Oberg and 1875 from Norris. His total “presumed” second week Edmonton base is therefore 10600.
Dinning has 5575 and there is no reason to think he wouldn’t keep that base. He gets 1500 from Hancock and 625 from Norris for a “presumed second week Edmonton base of 7700.
Morton has 2739 and gets 625 from Norris and 970 from Oberg for a “presumed second week Edmonton base of 4350 (rounded). I think there is a chance for a small amount of Morton’s Edmonton support to stay home but not enough to make a difference.
Stelmach can win if he can be in second place on the first count on December 2. The first ballot totals were 25600 Morton and 15,000 Stelmach so he needs 10600 more votes to break even from the first ballot and another 1600 from bleed to Morton in Edmonton for an Edmonton shortfall of 12200 going into the second ballot. He has a good chance to pick up 7700 of those in Edmonton alone from Hancock, Oberg and Norris. Which leaves him 4500 short of catching Morton just coming out of the endorsement adjustments in Edmonton.
The rural vote is interesting too. Morton is very strong with 15460 votes to Stelmach’s 10470 for a shortfall of 5000. My sense is Oberg has already lost whatever rural vote he had to Morton based on the kind of campaign he ran and the idea of we need to change the old boys network in the party. I am assuming Oberg’s remaining 5353 voters are not going to bleed to Morton and really are rural voters who will en masse to support another rural candidate like Stelmach. I think all Hancock and Norris rural voters go to Stelmach because there is no reason to go Morton or Dinning.
Coming out of Edmonton Stelmach is facing an adjusted shortfall to catch Morton of 4500 plus the first vote rural shortfall of 5000. Stelmach needs to make up 9500 votes to catch Morton before we face Calgary. He gets Hancock’s rural vote of 2000, Norris’ 3000 and Oberg’s 5300 which makes 10300 and effectively puts him even with Morton going into Calgary.
I will do an analysis of the Calgary vote implications for Stelmach journey to catch Morton tomorrow. Fact is Dinning “owns” Calgary butMorton is strong. How much does the allocation of the “also- rans” voters help Stelmach catch Morton?
Then there is the momentum and growth factor and the “Who really wants it” factor and who is going to go out and get it like Klein did last time.
Stay tuned.
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