I appears that Renewing the One Party State blog site has been taken over by a porn site. We will be removing the link to the site from this Blog until the matter is cleared up.
I will leave any references to the irony of this situation to others to comment on.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Candidates Disclosure Should be a Condition of Cabinet Apppointment.
It would be a good move if Premier Elect Stelmach required all candidates who want to be in Cabinet to disclose there leadership contributor lists as a precondition for any Cabinet appointment. Since every leadership candidate EXCEPT for Professor Morton undertook to disclose their contributor list; it should not be a burden. Inquiring minds want to know and I bet Premier Stelmach feels he needs to know too.
The public expects open, transparent and accountable government – particularly at the cabinet level. Those principles demand that Albertans know who was behind the leadership candidates, at least those candidates who wish to be in Cabinet – BEFORE they are appointed.
If Professor Morton believes he deserves a Cabinet spot, he should satisfy the test of openness and transparency that full and timely disclosure of his campaign contributors would provide.
We can expect anonymous donors to be respected but we need to know how many there were and the amounts they each contributed, not be all lumped together as a single group. Too many and too much money in that anonymous category will cause concern. We need to know who is behind the scenes and may be trying to influence any leadership candidate cum Cabinet Minister in the future.
If we are going to have a Lobbyist and Contractor Registry, and we should, we should also know who the leadership candidate contributors were too.
Time for Professor Morton to change his mind and disclose his campaign contributors, and if not, he ought to forfeit any aspirations to a Cabinet appointment.
The public expects open, transparent and accountable government – particularly at the cabinet level. Those principles demand that Albertans know who was behind the leadership candidates, at least those candidates who wish to be in Cabinet – BEFORE they are appointed.
If Professor Morton believes he deserves a Cabinet spot, he should satisfy the test of openness and transparency that full and timely disclosure of his campaign contributors would provide.
We can expect anonymous donors to be respected but we need to know how many there were and the amounts they each contributed, not be all lumped together as a single group. Too many and too much money in that anonymous category will cause concern. We need to know who is behind the scenes and may be trying to influence any leadership candidate cum Cabinet Minister in the future.
If we are going to have a Lobbyist and Contractor Registry, and we should, we should also know who the leadership candidate contributors were too.
Time for Professor Morton to change his mind and disclose his campaign contributors, and if not, he ought to forfeit any aspirations to a Cabinet appointment.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Ed’s MLA’s Come Through in the Second Ballot.
The top performers in delivering the Second Ballot vote for Ed Stelmach is Ed Stelmach. His own astonishing performance of 4156 votes in Fort-Sask Vegreville for 91% of total votes cast.
Given the obvious propensity for Morton supporters to go to Stelmach over Dinning, I have not said much about the impact of the second preference vote, although the MLAs would also have some impact on that outcome. Where it made a significant difference I have noted it.
The Second Ballot ranking (excluding the Morton #2 preference support) of the MLA endorsements for Stelmach are:
#1 Ray Danyluk of Lac La Biche-St Paul with 2496 votes
#2 Hon. Dave Hancock of Edmonton Whitemud with1909 votes
#3 Hon. Iris Evans of Sherwood Park with 1493 votes
#4 Hon. Luke Ouellette of Innisfail-SylvanLake with 1385 votes
#5 Lloyd Snelgrove of Vermillion-Lloydminster with 1231 votes
#6 Hon. Lyle Oberg of Strathmore-Brooks with 1012 votes
#7 Fred Lindsay of Stony Plain with 909 votes
#8 Mark Norris of Edmonton McClung with 917 votes (21 votes over Dinning but 246 past him on the allocation of the Morton second preference votes)
#9 George Groeneveld of Highwood with 901 votes (lost to Morton at first but won big time over Dinning by over 1000 votes on the Morton second preference votes)
#10 Hon. Pearl Calahasen of Lesser Slave Lake with 891 votes
#11 Hector Goudreau of Dunvegan-Central Peace with 581 votes
#12 Hon. Mel Knight of Grande Prairie Smokey with 570 votes
#13 Ivan Strang of West Yellowhead with 481 votes
#14 Hon. Guy Boutilier of Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo with 306 votes almost 100 votes behind Dinning on the first count and he still lost to Dinning with the addition of the second preference Morton votes.
This is a ranking of the performance of the supporters. I have not done the analysis but I expect all did significantly better than the November 25th first vote. Some constituencies have smaller and more dispersed populations than others so that will account for some differences.
That said though, this is a pretty good idea of who the real performers were for Ed Stelmach’s campaign. The top six are pretty impressive. The Hon. Boutilier is clearly not a campaigner. He garnered only 306 votes where the Fort McMurray population alone is now the size of Red Deer.
Given the obvious propensity for Morton supporters to go to Stelmach over Dinning, I have not said much about the impact of the second preference vote, although the MLAs would also have some impact on that outcome. Where it made a significant difference I have noted it.
The Second Ballot ranking (excluding the Morton #2 preference support) of the MLA endorsements for Stelmach are:
#1 Ray Danyluk of Lac La Biche-St Paul with 2496 votes
#2 Hon. Dave Hancock of Edmonton Whitemud with1909 votes
#3 Hon. Iris Evans of Sherwood Park with 1493 votes
#4 Hon. Luke Ouellette of Innisfail-SylvanLake with 1385 votes
#5 Lloyd Snelgrove of Vermillion-Lloydminster with 1231 votes
#6 Hon. Lyle Oberg of Strathmore-Brooks with 1012 votes
#7 Fred Lindsay of Stony Plain with 909 votes
#8 Mark Norris of Edmonton McClung with 917 votes (21 votes over Dinning but 246 past him on the allocation of the Morton second preference votes)
#9 George Groeneveld of Highwood with 901 votes (lost to Morton at first but won big time over Dinning by over 1000 votes on the Morton second preference votes)
#10 Hon. Pearl Calahasen of Lesser Slave Lake with 891 votes
#11 Hector Goudreau of Dunvegan-Central Peace with 581 votes
#12 Hon. Mel Knight of Grande Prairie Smokey with 570 votes
#13 Ivan Strang of West Yellowhead with 481 votes
#14 Hon. Guy Boutilier of Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo with 306 votes almost 100 votes behind Dinning on the first count and he still lost to Dinning with the addition of the second preference Morton votes.
This is a ranking of the performance of the supporters. I have not done the analysis but I expect all did significantly better than the November 25th first vote. Some constituencies have smaller and more dispersed populations than others so that will account for some differences.
That said though, this is a pretty good idea of who the real performers were for Ed Stelmach’s campaign. The top six are pretty impressive. The Hon. Boutilier is clearly not a campaigner. He garnered only 306 votes where the Fort McMurray population alone is now the size of Red Deer.
Stelmach and Dion - A New Alberta. A New Canada
Stelmach will be a uninfying force for the PC Party and will also change the nature of politics and governance in Alberta too. All for the better. Great campaign and the extremists were rejected by Albertans today, as were the traditional powerbroker politics of the past. Change was wanted and change is what we got.
Dion will be good for Alberta, especially as we tackle the environmental and immigration demands and opportunities before us.
If you want to know more about Stephane Dion go to Policy Channel for the interview we did with him during the campaign.
The link is http://www.policychannel.com/AVideos/Dion/iframe1.php
I am very tired and very happy to have called both the Dion and Stelmach wins tonight. I just wished I had made more bets.
Welcome to the New Alberta and the New Canada. Democracy has spoken very clearly and profoundly today in both places.
Dion will be good for Alberta, especially as we tackle the environmental and immigration demands and opportunities before us.
If you want to know more about Stephane Dion go to Policy Channel for the interview we did with him during the campaign.
The link is http://www.policychannel.com/AVideos/Dion/iframe1.php
I am very tired and very happy to have called both the Dion and Stelmach wins tonight. I just wished I had made more bets.
Welcome to the New Alberta and the New Canada. Democracy has spoken very clearly and profoundly today in both places.
Friday, December 01, 2006
The Catch 23 of Political Leadership
Everyone knows what a Catch 22 is. I have developed a new paradox that applies to the processes and practices of political leadership. I call it the Catch 23. That is the situation where the talents and skills it takes to get the job of a political leader are very different from those it takes to do the job of political leader.
Campaigns are large scale social activities dominated by manufactured simplified images, crisp vacuous sound bites, pleasing photo ops and truncated answers to complex concept based questions. It is about showing strength and domination and setting the attention getting agenda with professional media relations techniques. It is about issues management that masquerade as meaningful and resonant policy pronouncements. It is a decentralizing activity with endorsements and group think that is focused on not “messing up” as opposed to being momentous bold and courageous.
Leadership, on the other hand, is individualized, lonely and centralizing because of the enormous power and responsibility and accountability focused at the top, on one person. It is about change and all real change always happens at the margins, were it is uncomfortable and risky and comes with consequences, good and bad. It is about complexity and nuance, interests and influences, pressures and personalities that have to be balanced, bartered and prioritized. Some times principles get bent and promises get broken.
It is about culture that gets expressed in terms of competing principles and rivalling values that are either personal to the leader or collectively held by the society. The competition and tradeoffs amongst principles and values always get complicated and often misinterpreted by somebody or other. That usually results in political and personal consequences for the leader, and they are rarely good consequences.
Then this all has to be done in public, without a “dress rehearsal” and with out a “safety net” to catch you if you fail. It has to be done in an adversarial governance model that too often relishes having a good fight rather than finding the best solution. It is all very personal and personality driven when you look at the realities of modern politics and power. Each leader is captive of their own history, experiences, interests and aptitudes which impacts their judgement adds to the personality dimension of political leadership.
So how are we citizens then supposed to choose leaders given all of this? Obviously very carefully! The big questions are who are these candidates as people? What do they stand for and why? What kind of people are they and what kind of world do they come from. Are they decent, dedicated dependable and decisive? Do they know how to deal with people, and I mean all kinds of people? How do they handle pressure? Do they have a strong personal support base of family and close friends to help them as persons not just as politicians. Finally what is their world view? Are they, for example open curious and adaptable or are they controlling, contained and constrained?
Government like any other organization or institution never made a decision about anything. It is the people who lead and participate in them that are the real sources of decisions and directions. So who you elect is absolutely critical to the directions and destinations we undertake collectively as a society and how they will impact us individually and as family and community.
When you vote for the PC Leader/Premier tomorrow – slow down for a few moments and think twice about what you are voting for and why as much if not more than who you are voting for.
Then vote twice …#1 Ed Stelmach, #2 Jim Dinning. You will be glad you did.
Campaigns are large scale social activities dominated by manufactured simplified images, crisp vacuous sound bites, pleasing photo ops and truncated answers to complex concept based questions. It is about showing strength and domination and setting the attention getting agenda with professional media relations techniques. It is about issues management that masquerade as meaningful and resonant policy pronouncements. It is a decentralizing activity with endorsements and group think that is focused on not “messing up” as opposed to being momentous bold and courageous.
Leadership, on the other hand, is individualized, lonely and centralizing because of the enormous power and responsibility and accountability focused at the top, on one person. It is about change and all real change always happens at the margins, were it is uncomfortable and risky and comes with consequences, good and bad. It is about complexity and nuance, interests and influences, pressures and personalities that have to be balanced, bartered and prioritized. Some times principles get bent and promises get broken.
It is about culture that gets expressed in terms of competing principles and rivalling values that are either personal to the leader or collectively held by the society. The competition and tradeoffs amongst principles and values always get complicated and often misinterpreted by somebody or other. That usually results in political and personal consequences for the leader, and they are rarely good consequences.
Then this all has to be done in public, without a “dress rehearsal” and with out a “safety net” to catch you if you fail. It has to be done in an adversarial governance model that too often relishes having a good fight rather than finding the best solution. It is all very personal and personality driven when you look at the realities of modern politics and power. Each leader is captive of their own history, experiences, interests and aptitudes which impacts their judgement adds to the personality dimension of political leadership.
So how are we citizens then supposed to choose leaders given all of this? Obviously very carefully! The big questions are who are these candidates as people? What do they stand for and why? What kind of people are they and what kind of world do they come from. Are they decent, dedicated dependable and decisive? Do they know how to deal with people, and I mean all kinds of people? How do they handle pressure? Do they have a strong personal support base of family and close friends to help them as persons not just as politicians. Finally what is their world view? Are they, for example open curious and adaptable or are they controlling, contained and constrained?
Government like any other organization or institution never made a decision about anything. It is the people who lead and participate in them that are the real sources of decisions and directions. So who you elect is absolutely critical to the directions and destinations we undertake collectively as a society and how they will impact us individually and as family and community.
When you vote for the PC Leader/Premier tomorrow – slow down for a few moments and think twice about what you are voting for and why as much if not more than who you are voting for.
Then vote twice …#1 Ed Stelmach, #2 Jim Dinning. You will be glad you did.
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