Official 2012 Alberta Election Thread

[sabad66]

Woohoo. "strategic vote" here. Would normally have given my support to one of the more liberal parties, but had to go PC this time.

One of the political analysts on global explained it best. Something to the tune of "Albertans are ultimately looking for competence, and it really showed through the last few weeks."

Good job AB!

[Maxt]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak


Turns out Albertains are not retards after all and that you can't buy your way into politics here. Good for you Alberta!

Have you been paying any attention? How do you think Redford won the leadership and the Liberal vote..

[01RedDX]

.

[Khyron]

Calgary Sun should be interesting as they've basically been the "Wildrose Bugle" for the last month.

I wonder how many people like me were so sick of the fucking polling that we intentionally answered wrong to screw it up. You don't GET to run a poll 3 times a day and have it accurate (IMO)

[speedog]

Interesting to see how off the beyond poll above was as well.

[Maybelater]

Originally posted by speedog
Interesting to see how off the beyond poll above was as well.

If a poll was done today I think the results would be different, just look how much they declined on the beyond poll as time passed. The WRA showed its colours through the election and it scared off most people.

Curious though to see what the turn-out was like as I have a feeling the results had a lot to do with people who otherwise wouldn't vote becoming concerned with policies of the wildrose party. The turnout at my polling station of about 260 registered voters was horrible though...like 20% horrible...

(Also, I laughed at the one lone Communist ballot I got)

[Melinda]

You know, as much as I was hoping the WR would take it, and as much as I don't like Alison Redford, I'll find the silver lining in the fact that Ted Morton is done.

Is anyone else absolutely appalled at Redford's "victory" speech as I was? Even if I was a PC supporter I would have thought that speech was concieted, hollow and super insulting to everyone involved in this election except for herself and the PC candidates that won.

[hampstor]

Gotta say congrats to all the candidates that won, and thank you to all the volunteers on the campaigns in all the parties. I ran into many volunteers from other parties and aside from a few who "wouldn't give the time of day to a Wildrose supporter", most were great to chit/chat with and work along!

We have an agreement to clean up signs with the Liberal team tomorrow when we run into their signs, and vice versa.

[Maybelater]

Imagine the intensity candidates are going through in some districts. Two polls haven't finished in Calgary-Fish Creek and the incumbent WRA is behind by one hundred votes. Sucks to be the clerks they are probably getting a hawked hard by scrutineers to make sure they counted everything exact.

[Isaiah]

Aren't the signs kept for future campaigns?

[Toma]

What? Alberta voted PC again? No way! lol

I voted NDP. WR seem like a bunch of kooks.

[hampstor]

Originally posted by Isaiah
Aren't the signs kept for future campaigns?

If the candidate won, they reuse signs. If they lost, it depends on if they run again. Signs are definitely not cheap. I talked to some of the PC teams and some paid more than double what we paid for ours. The metal H-stands cost more than the signs (in our campaign anyway). Each lawn sign with a metal stand work out to about 4-5 bucks. At a minimum, the CA's will keep the H-stands.

Should be interesting to see what happens with some of the PC candidates. I know a few of their campaigns actually ran out of money and the party cut them off (back when WRP was quite far ahead in the polls before the bozo eruptions), yet they still won. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at that caucus meeting

[Maybelater]

They are certainty not cheap. My mother is an elected official and we used rebar to hold plenty of signs into the ground simply to avoid losing any for future usage.

Works great, I like to see teenagers pull out rebar sign posts that are sledge hammered secure into the ground with zap-straps holding the sign to the bars. A bunch were obviously kicked because they were bent in the middle, but nothing more.

[Weapon_R]

Originally posted by hampstor


Should be interesting to see what happens with some of the PC candidates. I know a few of their campaigns actually ran out of money and the party cut them off (back when WRP was quite far ahead in the polls before the bozo eruptions), yet they still won. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at that caucus meeting

A birdie told me that the PC Party pumped thousands of dollars into each campaign during the last week

[Freeskier]

So, as I'm not in Alberta any more...and beyond was my main source of info on this election, I expected the WR to run away with this. What happened?! I guess beyond polls don't really represent AB as accurately as I thought lol!

Originally posted by Melinda
Is anyone else absolutely appalled at Redford's "victory" speech as I was? Even if I was a PC supporter I would have thought that speech was concieted, hollow and super insulting to everyone involved in this election except for herself and the PC candidates that won.

Just watched the speech on cbc.ca, seemed like a pretty run of the mill victory speech to me. Payed respects to the other parties and reaffirmed the party line...exactly what I would expect.

[finboy]

Originally posted by Sentry
Wildrose is not gonna like this.


They hate minorities.

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by Freeskier
So, as I'm not in Alberta any more...and beyond was my main source of info on this election, I expected the WR to run away with this. What happened?! I guess beyond polls don't really represent AB as accurately as I thought lol!

What happened is that when WRA candidates started solidifying the perception that it was a party of socially conservative crazies it sent a lot of undecideds, Libs/NDP and "soft support" WRA people to the PCs and likely got a bunch of people who weren't a part of any polling out to vote as well. The WRA was supposed to get (or get most of) Calgary and 'all rural ridings' but instead barely made a dent in the PCs fortress and only got the southern Alberta rural ridings

Smith dealt with the last week very poorly, Klein could get away with it because he didn't have any alternative to worry about, instead Smith chose the side of her more extreme support and candidates and it scared away others, both the aforementioned 'soft supporters' as well as people who may have been on the PC side but were debating about making the switch. The WRA got their urban support because of fiscal issues and lost it because they didn't dampen concerns over social issues. All the "fear-mongering" that was required by the PCs (and Libs and NDP) was using verbatim quotes by a couple WRA candidates often even in the proper context. Smith's response didn't sell people on it being a party that could ignore social issues when they came up.

Quite frankly what we've seen is an acknowledgement by Albertans that they either care about being less conservative on social issues (i.e. both not electing the WRA to a minority or majority AND getting Ted Morton out) or at least care about not wanting to be perceived as socially regressive (since I'd say the vast majority of Albertans are incredibly apathetic on social matters) when the economic options are pretty well identical in the grand scheme. Plus I think as people got to know the WRA they realized that the "party of change" shouldn't just be the same kind of party that was in power ten years ago and that it was in fact the PCs who have changed, not the far right.

[hampstor]

Originally posted by Weapon_R


A birdie told me that the PC Party pumped thousands of dollars into each campaign during the last week

Oh I know it happened during the last week! However to be told first "sorry, you're cut off because we need to pump money into strategic ridings so we at least hang onto something" then "oh wait, we can still give you monies" must be a bit of a piss off

I knew a week in our PC opponent (incumbant) was in poor financial shape compared to us because he ran a fundraiser 2 days into the election.

[Khyron]

Voter turn out was still terrible. 42% or so, over 40% last time but way below the 50 and 60s we saw 10-20 years ago.

[Sugarphreak]

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