{"id":2860,"date":"2011-02-11T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2860"},"modified":"2011-02-11T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-11T15:00:00","slug":"this-week-in-alberta-a-quick-glance-at-the-pc-leadership-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2860","title":{"rendered":"This Week in Alberta: A Quick Glance at the PC Leadership Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Stelmach’s<\/span> announcement that he will stay on as Premier until this fall<\/a>, there’s plenty of time for his would-be-successors to put together campaign teams and sign up Albertans. Still, the field is starting to take shape – here’s a quick overview of the likely candidates:<\/p>\n

The PCs have two declared candidates – Ted “The Man” Morton<\/strong> <\/a>and Doug “Doug” Horner<\/span><\/strong><\/a>. Alison Redford<\/strong><\/a> has yet to declare but, like most reasonably competent Cabinet Ministers with name recognition, she is expected to run. Gene Zwozdesky<\/span><\/strong><\/a> is thinking<\/a> about it, if only to force everyone in Alberta to learn how to spell and pronounce his name.<\/p>\n

Dough Griffiths<\/strong><\/a> may not be well known, but he’s young and has more original ideas than the rest of the PC caucus put together. He’d be a welcome addition to the contest.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Denis<\/strong><\/a> is also young and ambitious, but has said it’s not his time yet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dave Hancock<\/strong><\/a> could represent the left…but there doesn’t seem to be much point in running when he has no chance of victory.<\/p>\n

Those are the likeliest suspects from within the PC caucus but what about a star outsider? Well, I wouldn’t count on it.<\/p>\n

Jim Dinning<\/strong> has simultaneously ruled out<\/a> and mused<\/a> about another run. Given it takes the man 40 minutes to order a donut, I wouldn’t expect a decision any time soon, but most PCs I know aren’t expecting another run from Jim.<\/p>\n

Or, for that mater, from the other<\/em> Jim – after all, Prentice<\/strong> has money to make in the private sector and his ambitions likely lie federally. Dave Bronconnier<\/span><\/strong> still smells too much like a Liberal. Preston Manning<\/strong> would have made a great Premier had he run in 2006…but he turns 70 next year. I’m hoping Craig Chandler<\/strong> runs, but only because Chandler is a bottomless source of blog material.<\/p>\n

One outsider who sounds like he might be giving it a go is Gary Mar<\/a> – Alberta’s current Washington ambassador, and a former Health Minister.<\/p>\n

I wouldn’t expect any federal Tories to jump – the Cabinet Ministers have too much to lose, and the backbenchers lack the profile to mount a credible challenge. If anyone does run, James Rajotte<\/span><\/strong><\/a> seems like the most likely candidate<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Stelmach’s announcement that he will stay on as Premier until this fall, there’s plenty of time for his would-be-successors to put together campaign teams and sign up Albertans. Still, the field is starting to take shape – here’s a quick overview of the likely candidates: The PCs have two declared candidates – Ted “The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[817],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2860"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2860\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}